A second native locality of the purple beech is found in a forest near
Sondershausen in Thuringen, Germany, where a fine group of these trees
is to be seen. They were mentioned for the first time in the latter half
of the eighteenth century, but must have been old specimens long before
that time. The third locality seems to be of much later origin. It is a
forest near Roveredo in South Tyrol, where a new [595] university is
being erected. It is only a century ago that the first specimens of the
purple beech were discovered there.
As it is very improbable that the two last named localities should have
received their purple beeches from the first named forest, it seems
reasonable to assume that the variety must have been produced at least
thrice.
The purple beech is now exceedingly common in cultivation. But Jaggi
succeeded in showing that all the plants owe their origin to the
original trees mentioned above, and are, including nearly all cultivated
specimens with the sole exception of the vicinity of Buch, probably
derived from the trees in Thuringen. They are easily multiplied by
grafting, and come true from seed, at least often, and in a high
proportion. Whether the original trees would yield a pure progeny if
fertilized by their own pollen has as yet not been tested. The young
seedlings have purple seed-leaves, and may easily be selected by this
character, but they seem to be always subjected in a large measure to
vicinism.
Many other instances of trees and shrubs, found in accidental specimens
constituting a new variety in the wild state, might be given. The
oak-leaved beech has been found in a forest of Lippe-Detmold in Germany
and near Versailles, [596] whence it was introduced into horticulture by
Carriere. Similarly divided and cleft leaves seem to have occurred more
often in the wild state, and cut-leaved hazels are recorded from Rouen
in France, birches and alders from Sweden and Lapland, where both are
said to have been met with in several forests. The purple barberry was
found about 1830 by Bertin, near Versailles. Weeping varieties of ashes
were found wild in England and in Germany, and broom-like oaks, _Quercus
pedunculata fastigiata_, are recorded from Hessen-Darmstadt, Calabria,
the Pyrenees and other localities. About the real origin of all these
varieties nothing is definitely known.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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