1901.] 



NATURAL SCIEXCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 



609 



COCKSCOMB FASCIATION OF PINEAPPLES. 

 BY JOHN W. HARSHBERGER, PH.D. 



A remarkable case of fasciation, probably one of the most strik- 

 iug of that teratologieal couditiou kuowu to botanists, is one 

 recently found by the writer in the pineapple, Ananassa saliva. 

 The fruit of the pineapple plant is a multiple one, formed from 

 many spicately arranged flowers and their bracts consolidated into 

 one mass upon a succulent, fleshy axis. Ordinarily, only a single, 

 conical fruit with its tuft of green, slerile, bract leaves is borne at 

 the summit of the plant, surrounded at the base by the large, 

 leathery, awl-pointed, spirally-arranged, sword-shaped, vegetative 

 leaves. In teratologieal specimens, shipped to Philadelphia from 

 Jamaica and displayed in the windows of prominent fruiterers, 

 several pineapples produced on a single plant were found united 

 bv conireniral growth into a fan-like mass. One of the most 



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