Fasciation in the Sweet Potato. 
(WITH PLATE XIX.) 
> 
By Henry S. Conarp, A. M. 
The occurrence of fasciation or broadening of normally 
round plant axes has been often noted in a great variety of 
plants. Ferns, lycopods (9), gymnosperms, monocotyls and 
dicotyls alike show it, in frequency according to the order 
of mention ; it is most commonly observed in dicotyls. In 
shrubs, trees and herbs, following the increasirg order, it has 
been recorded. The condition is most common in vegetative 
and flowering stems, being very rarely found in roots (1, 3, 7). 
It appears most in plants subjected to conditions of nourish- 
ment above the normal (4), occasionally, perhaps, as a result 
of disease (13) or injury (2, 8, 16). Frequently many of the 
plants in a certain locality will be fasciated, ¢. g., a field near 
Hainesport, N. J., which yielded in the summer of 1899 
dozens or even hundreds of fasciations of Rudbeckia hirta 
L. (11); also a meadow near Haddonfield, N. J., where 
Ranunculus bulbosus L. was quite as largely fasciated in 1893 
(10); at Cape May, N. J., Desmodium ciliare DC. was fre- 
quently found fasciated by Professor Macfarlane in 1899; and, 
finally, at Fallsington, Pa., the writer observed fasciation in a 
species of Lactuca in 1899 and Igoo. Such localities have 
been noticed to produce fasciations year after year. This fact, 
and the occurrence of so many individuals in so narrow a 
space, may result from the hereditary nature of this condition, 
as shown in Celosta cristata of gardens, and in de Vries’ 
fasciated races. The Clyde strawberry bears fasciated flower- 
stalks, and hence, fasciated berries of huge size. 
The common sweet potato (/pomea Batatas Poir.) as grown 
about Philadelphia produces fasciated vines very plentifully, 
(205) 
