373 



In the majority of 

 cases, the cones at the base 

 of an annual shoot He close 

 together and remain small- 

 er than normal ones, but 

 yield seeds capable of ger- 

 mination. The production 

 of such cones, instead of 

 staminate flowers, points 

 to a local excess of con- 

 centrated, plastic food ma- 

 terial. Borggreve^ has made 

 a corroborative observa- 

 tion. He found, the year 

 after transplanting several 

 spruces, possibly 15 years 

 old, in the Botanical Gar- 

 dens at Bonn, that the 

 terminal shoot had been 

 transformed into a pistil- 

 late inflorescence. 



If an excess of plastic 

 building substances partici- 

 pates in this, so that the 

 various leaf members of a 

 blossom retain their form, 

 but the axis is lengthened, 

 we speak of the disunion 

 of parts of the blossom 

 normally united as aposta- 

 sis. The calyx, for ex- 

 ample, then appears sepa- 

 rated from the corolla by 

 a long internode, the cor- 

 olla in turn from the 

 stamens, etc. 



The most perfect form 

 of over-nutrition of the 

 blossoms is found in the 

 so-called "Rose-Kings," i. 

 e., in the roses in which a 

 new blossom springs from 

 the center of an older one, 



1 Forstliche Blatter 1880. 

 Vol. 17, p. 245. 



Fig-. 54. 



Cone disease in the Scotch pine. 

 (After Nobbe.) 



