MONSTROSITIES AND MALFORMATIONS. 251 



Dwarfing may also be due to poor or shrivelled 

 partially atrophied seeds or such as have had 

 their endosperms or embryos injured by insects or 

 fungi, and although it is possible to nurse such 

 dwarfs into normal and vigorous plants with good 

 culture, they do not usually recover under natural 

 conditions in competition with more vigorous 

 plants. 



Distortions or Malformations may be defined as 

 abnormalities in the form of organs which concern 

 all, or nearly all the parts, and do not refer merel}- 

 to swellings or excrescences on them or excava- 

 tions, etc., in them. 



Fasciation. Shoots of Asparagus, Pine, Ash, 

 and many other plants are occasionally expanded 

 into broad ribbon-like structures often studded with 

 more than the normal number of buds or leaves, 

 etc., such as would be found on the usual cylin- 

 drical shoots. Such fasciations are due to several 

 buds fusing laterally under compression when 

 N'oung and the whole mass growing up in 

 common, or, in a few cases, to the unilateral 

 overgrowth of one side of the terminal bud. 

 Fasciations appear to depend on excessive nutri- 

 tion in rich soils. They may spread out above in 

 a fan-like manner, exaggerating the abnormality, 

 or they may revert to the original form. Some 

 cases are more or less fixed by heredity e.g. 

 Cclosia. Fasciated stems are frequently curved 

 like a crozier, owing to one edge growing more 

 rapidly than the other. 



Cauliflowers are really cultivated monstrosities. 



