Does anyone know whether the weeping birch, Betula pendula "Youngii" comes
true from seed? I have also seen some weeping Ash trees (Fraxinus exelsior
"pendula" ?) growing locally and wonder whether the same applies, or whether
it's cuttings/grafting only.
Christina

On Thu, 24 Feb 2005 19:28:13 -0000, "Christina Cameron"
wrote:

Does anyone know whether the weeping birch, Betula pendula "Youngii" comes
true from seed? I have also seen some weeping Ash trees (Fraxinus exelsior
"pendula" ?) growing locally and wonder whether the same applies, or whether
it's cuttings/grafting only.
Christina

Young's birch is an exceptional form of B. pendula and afik is a named
clone. Occasional exceptionally weeping forms of B. pendula will occur
in any large (no idea how large) batch of seedlings, this is typical
of the normal variation found in most species. None of those seedlings
will be Young's birch - all Young's birch are vegetative clones of the
original seedling.
I don't know of any named clone of weeping Ash. We have a large
specimen here which sheds huge numbers of seeds and we have them
coming up all over the place. Seedlings with the weeping habit are not
uncommon but are again only a small (no idea how small) proportion of
the total. I would guess that the proportion of weeping seedlings from
a batch of seeds taken from non-weeping trees would be significantly
lower.
That's the best this gardener can do, you need some geneticists and
statisticians to get a clearer explanation.
BTW grafting scions of a weeping ash onto non-weeping seedlings is
quite easy.
Rod

Weed my address to reply

http://website.lineone.net/~rodcraddock/index.html

" graft varieties of B. pendula on to seedling stocks of the type species in March ."

(Fraxinus exelsior 'Pendula') " named varieties do not come true from seed , must be grafted in March "

Many thanks for your authoritative reply Rod. My skills at grafting are as
yet untried, although I have rooted lots of cuttings of various trees and
shrubs (my home-made mist propagation is a godsend). I shall keep a keen eye
on my seedlings to watch for "weepers".
Many thanks, Christina