Medlar grafted to a hawthorn
close up of whip and tongue graft
To the delight of plant geeks everywhere, MAKE Magazine has put out a HACK YOUR PLANTS issue (Vol 7). I’ve been a phyto-hacker for years and reading this magazine made me feel all warm and fuzzy.
Here are the results of a cool inter-species plant hack I recently performed by grafting the scion from a medlar (Mespilus germanica) to a feral hawthorn tree (Crataegus monogyna)
Why? you might ask.
The Medlar has a fruit that tastes (to my mind) rather like sugar-frosted baby shit, (although I’ve been told by people who like it that I should give it a second try.) The medlar has historically been used as a kind of metaphor for prostitution or ‘premature destitution,’ a quality which makes it oddly endearing to me. And, I couldn’t resist trying an Inter-species graft, just to see what would happen. I haven’t been able (yet) to produce the elusive +Crataegomespilus graft chimera, which I wrote about back in March 2005, but at least I now have what looks like a viable graft union, from which the chimera might one day sprout. I will just have to bide my time a little longer to see if this exquisite botanical monster eventually appears.
Medlar, Mespilus germanica, Cortes Island 2006
