THE INDUCTION, DEVELOPMENT, AND HERITABILITY OF FASCIATIONS. 
By Avice ADELAIDE Knox. 
The definition of fasciation given by the earlier writers includes plants 
with axes which, normally round or polygonal, have become flat, and 
which, wholly or in part, develop through a linear instead of a cone-shaped 
growing region. Such stems are commonly referred to as banded or ribbon- 
shaped; they produce abnormal numbers of leaves and flowers; they possess 
an altered phyllotaxy; and they usually show. bifurcations, or splittings, 
somewhere through their length. The-last tendency is so marked that 
fasciation may be said-to include two tendencies—one toward the enlarge- 
ment and another toward the division of the axes affected. 
Ring-fasciations have circular growing regions, and the upper part of the 
stem is shaped like a funnel with a cavity continually wider toward the top. 
The funnel commonly breaks on the side, and the stem finally becomes 
flat; for this reason they, too, come under the head of the banded forms. 
The various torsions of stems of this character described by Godron (4) ,* 
Masters (3), and others, seem to be caused by inequalities of growth result- 
ing from injuries on the concave side. The fact that the curves may be 
caused by injury is referred to by Nestler (7) for Saméducus nigra and Son- 
chus palustris, and will not be especially noted in this paper. Plate 1, and 
plate u1, figs. 1 and 3, give an adequate idea of the vertical development of 
fasciated axes. The material for the research presented was gathered from 
the cenotheras of Dr. D. T. MacDougal’s experimental ground at the New 
York Botanical Garden and from the plants of a waste field of O. diennts 
in Bedford Park, New York City. Many years ago Knight (1) advocated 
enrichment of the soil for the culture of cockscombs, and de Vries also 
has repeatedly emphasized the necessity of plenty of fertilizer. The experi- 
mental garden provided the requisite conditions, but although fasciations 
were more abundant in the rich ground their prolific production on plants 
that grew wild in the sandy waste land illustrated the force of de Vries’s 
further conclusion (19) that the innate character of the plant is more 
important than the environmental factors, significant as he deems these 
to be. — 
The life-cycle of biennial primroses divides itself into (a) the rosette stage, 
and (4) the adult stage, when the flowering stalks develop and fruit. The 
*The figures in parenthesis refer to the bibliography, page 18. 
