54 



FASCIATION. 



The proliferous cones of Sciadopitys vertidllata are of great interest ; 

 in the ordinary cones of this species the bracts are nearly completely 

 concrescent with the seed scale, but in the specimen figured the bracts 

 and the seed scales are more or less detached one from the other ; 

 moreover the bracts gradually assume the condition of the perulae 

 such as surround the buds. In this plant, then, the bracts instead 



of becoming more leafy as they do 

 usually in proliferous cones, revert to 

 the vaginal or perular condition. The 

 metamorphosis is, in this case, retrograde 

 instead of progressive, or to speak more 

 correctly, development has been arrested 

 instead of enhanced. From the axil 

 of each of these perulse proceeds a 

 " needle " or phylloid shoot of the 

 ordinary character, so that in these 

 cones we have it in evidence that the 

 perulffi are modifications of the leaves, 

 that the "needles" or phylloid shoots 

 arc axillary to them, that they 

 occupy the same relation to the peralse 

 as the seed-scale does to the bract 

 in ordinary cases, and further that 

 they have the same essential structure 

 as the seed-scales of this and all other 

 genera.* 



FASCIATION. Although malformations 

 referred to this heading are more common 

 among other families of plants, especially 

 herbaceous species, they have been 

 occasionally noticed in Taxads and 

 Conifers in the branchlets of Pinm 

 Pinaster, P. sylvestris, P. excelsa, Larix 

 europcea ; in the leaves of Taxus 

 bacc-ata, Cupressus obtusa, Juniperus 

 communis, J. cliinensis. The opposite 

 phenomenon or FISSION as it is tech- 

 nically called, is probably of less frequent 

 appearance. In the Kew Museum is 

 preserved a cone of Picea excelsa dividing 

 into two, each part bearing bracts and 

 scales. A ' similar occurrence is some- 

 times seen in the staminate flowers of 

 Cedrus Libani. 



A curious instance of fasciation in the Scots Pine was sent to 

 Messrs. James Yeitch and Sons by a correspondent in Buckinghamshire ; 

 it resembled very closely that figured in the "Gardeners' Chronicle" of 

 April 10th, 1886, which was sent to the Editor from Chatsworth, and 



* Many other instances of malformation in the sexual and other organs of Taxads 

 and Conifers are figured and described by Dickson in Journ. Bot. Soc. Edinb., July, 1860. 

 Caspary, De Abielin. flor. fcein. Struct. Morph. 1861. Parlatore in Ann. Sc. Nat, ser. 4 

 p. 215 (1865). Carriere in Rev. hort, 1887, p. 509. Also by Eichler, Oersted and 

 others. 



Fig. 39. Proliferous cone of Sciadopitys 

 vertidllata. Nat. size. 



