THE STEM OR SHOOT. 



87 



be here briefly referred to. It appeared to be the 

 case that the fasciated organ represents in itself 

 from birth onwards the equivalent or potentiality of 

 two or more organs of which at the earliest stage 

 there was no sign, and that, owing to the inherent 

 tendency for these " latent " organs (if they may so 

 be termed) to assert themselves, the subsequent 

 branching gradually, as shown by the appearance of 

 furrows and ridges and the band-shaped expansion 

 of the organ, ensued ; these furrows and strise are not 

 due to postgenital union of several shoots, as Masters 

 and others supposed, but represent the first signs of 

 partition of a single shoot. 



The writer is indebted to Dr. A. H. Church,* of 

 Oxford, for the concrete and definite concept of 

 "growth-centres." He says that in the normal shoot 

 " growth is distributed at the apex of a shoot in such 

 a manner that its transverse- component may be 

 expressed by a plane circular construction around a 

 central point (the growth-centre) " and that " the 

 circular section of the vast majority of plant-axes is 

 evidently the outcome of such a regular and sym- 

 metrical distribution from the growing-point 

 In the ' fasciated ' system the centric distribution 

 around a point (the single growth-centre) is changed 

 for an attempt at similar distribution around a 

 number of such centres ... or around a longer 

 or shorter series of such points constituting a line, 

 with the result that great disturbances ensue, owing to 

 the impossibility of normal uniform growth expansion 

 in such a system." He says further : "A growing 

 system might evidently have one such a centre or more 

 than one. One is the simplest case, and as a matter of 

 observation is the general rule ; on the other hand, 

 the case of multiple growth-centres is included under 

 the botanical title of 'fasciation j)lienomena? " 



In many cases there appears to be an immense 



# Ferniond elaborates a complicated mechanical explanation of fasciation 

 which need not be here entered into. 



