which had always borne ordinary fruit, produced
a branch which yielded red magnum bonums.[815] Mr. Rivers, of
Sawbridgeworth, informs me (Jan. 1863) that a single tree out of 400 or
500 trees of the Early Prolific plum, which is a purple kind, descended
from an old French variety bearing purple fruit, produced when about
ten years old bright yellow plums; these differed in no respect except
colour from those on the other trees, but were unlike any other known
kind of yellow plum.[816]

_Cherry_ (_Prunus cerasus_).--Mr. Knight has recorded (_idem_) the case
of a branch of a May-Duke cherry, which, though certainly never
grafted, always produced fruit, ripening later, and more oblong, than
the fruit on the other branches. Another account has been given of two
May-Duke cherry-trees in Scotland, with branches bearing oblong, and
very fine fruit, which invariably ripened, as in Knight's case, a
fortnight later than the other cherries.[817]

_Grapes_ (_Vitis vinifera_).--The black or purple Frontignan in one
case produced during two successive years (and no doubt permanently)
spurs which bore white Frontignan grapes. In another case, on the same
footstalk, the lower berries "were well-coloured black Frontignans;
those next the stalk were white, with the exception of one black and
one streaked berry;" and altogether there were fifteen black and twelve
white berries on the same stalk. In another kind of grape black and
amber-coloured berries were produced in the same cluster.[818] Count
Odart describes a variety which often bears on the same stalk small
round and large oblong berries; though the shape of the berry is
generally a fixed character.[819] Here is another striking case given
on the excellent authority of M. Carriere:[820] "a black Hamburgh grape
(Frankenthal) was cut down, and produced three suckers; one of these
was layered, and after a time produced much smaller berries, which
always ripened at least a fortnight {376} earlier than the others. Of
the remaining two suckers, one produced every year fine grapes, whilst
the other, although it set an abundance of fruit, matured only a few,
and these of inferior quality.

_Gooseberry_ (_Ribes grossularia_).--A remarkable case has been
described by Dr. Lindley[821] of a bush which bore at the same time no
less than four kinds of berri