ee cere Bee)” 
FASCIATION IN OXALIS CRENATA AND EXPERIMENTAL 
PRODUCTION OF FASCIATIONS. 
BY HENRI HUS. 
Owalis crenata is largely grown in South America, 
more particularly in Peru, where it is known as ‘¢ Oka,”’ 
and in Bolivia where it flourishes on the Puna, a plateau 
12,000 feet above sea level. It bears tubers (pl. 17, +. 
1) three to four inches long and about an inch in diameter. 
They contain much starch and are used as food after hay- 
ing been exposed to the sun for two or three days‘and then 
boiled for about twenty minutes in water containing some 
cooking soda. 
During four years more or less I had the opportunity to 
observe this plant in the experimental grounds at Berkeley, 
California, where it was grown from tubers received from 
the Botanic Garden at Sydney, N.S. W. Each year a 
number of fasciations of the stem made their appearance, 
but only in the latter part of the season. Some of the 
plants of the 1903 crop were chosen for purposes of illu- 
stration. Not only did they show the more normal type 
of fasciation, 7. e., a fasciated mainstem and branches, the 
majority of which are normal (pl. 18), but there also oc- 
curred instances where the entire plant was fasciated in the 
most fantastic manner and even bore tubers at various 
places on the aérial stem ( pl. 19). Many of the tubers 
were likewise fasciated. 
From Dr. Otto Kuntze it was learned that this fasciated 
condition is the one most frequently met with in Bolivia, 
and all plants of Oxalis crenata seen by him at Cochabam- 
ba were of this character. * There are no means of knowing 
* Penzig in his Pflanzen-Teratologie mentions a fasciation of Oxalis 
crenata a8 enumerated by Crépin in Recueil de faits tératologiques, 2, 
(Bull. de la Soc. Roy. de Botanique de Belgique. 4 276-278. 1865), 
but which was not found when the paper in question was referred to. 
(147) 
