Not long ago, while walking down Bethlehem Road in Jerusalem, I spotted a tree unlike any I had ever seen before. It had both pink and red flowers which, upon closer examination, belonged to the same crape myrtle tree. It was an example of what is known in horticultural circles as a multi-graft tree or, in jest, as a Franken-tree.

No one knows when the grafting of plants began. Initially, grafting was thought to be an extension of vegetative or clonal propagation by cuttings. Just as softwood (flexible) or hardwood (woody) cuttings, detached from shoots or stems and placed directly into the ground at the proper time of the year, will strike roots and grow into new plants, it was thought that grafting involved a similar process. The only difference was that, in grafting, the detached cutti

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