94 The Plant World. 



frequently. Thus one of the flowerstalks of a plant showing 

 fasciation in six of its nine flowerstalks, was split eighteen inches 

 from the top, the divisions bearing respectively nineteen and 

 twenty-three flowers. As a rule the splitting occurs verv much 

 nearer the top. Of fourteen split inflorescences, ten were 

 split within two inches from the top, one at five, one at eight, 

 one at eleven, and one at eighteen inches from the top. This 

 would militate against the assumption that the branching of the 

 female inflorescence in corn was in any way related to fasciation. 

 Nor do all compound ears show fasciation, though in our exper- 

 ience they did in the majority of instances, as shown in the fol- 

 lowing table. 



TABLE II, SHOWING THE RELATION BETWEEN FASCIATION AND 

 COMPOUND EARS IN ZEA MAYS EVERTA. 



At the same time the fact that compound ears were also present 

 in No. 11410 (non-fasciated stock) to the extent of 16% need 

 not necessarily invalidate a contention that fasciation and 

 branching are to be looked upon as due to an identical cause, 

 for among the ancestors of these plants may well have been a 

 fasciated ear, something rendered more probable by the fact 

 that one of the components of one compound ear showed flatten- 

 ing (table 1). Further, in the case of the ears under No. 11310, 

 there was not a single compound ear which did not show some 

 fasciation, which would indicate a close correlation between 

 branching of the inflorescence and fasciation. This correlation 

 is not so marked in the case of the ears under No. 

 11510. But even here 59% of the compound ears showed 

 fasciation while of the single ears under this number only 

 46% were fasciated. In connection with this the question might 

 be raised whethere th pressure exerted upon compound ears might 

 have a tendency to either cause fasciation or to bring about its 



