FORKING AND FASCIATION. 



39 



in the lupin. Female cones of Welwitschia, showing 

 various stages of forking, were collected by the writer 

 in Damaraland. 



As in the stem, the more complex type of forking 

 by which an exceptionally robust and vigorous inflo- 

 rescence tends to divide at the apex, after broadening 

 into a flattened structure below, is styled fasciation, 

 Magnus described a fasciated inflorescence of the 

 mountain scorpion-grass (Myosotis alpestris) of especial 

 importance as bearing upon the morphological nature 

 of the inflorescence of Boraginacege. Braun, Schimper, 

 Wydler, and Celakovsky, as a result of comparative 

 morphological studies, held it to be a sympodium, 

 whose first-formed flower was terminal. Kaufmann, 

 Kraus, Warming, Goebel, and others, relying on the 

 utterly misleading data of the ontogeny, considered 

 it to be a monopodium, with all the flowers as lateral 

 branches. Now Magnus points out that, if this last 

 view is correct, the fasciated axis of the inflorescence 

 should bear the flowers singly in a lateral position ; 

 whereas, if the sympodial theory is correct, the fasciated 

 axis should bear a terminal flower and a number of 

 subsidiary cymes laterally in the axils of the leaves. 

 This is actually the case. A quite remarkable example 

 of the efficiency of a teratological phenomenon for 

 solving a morphological problem ! 



The abnormal inflorescence shown in PI. XXXIII, 

 fig. 1, is best regarded as a case of fasciation rather 

 than of fusion, and that for two reasons : (1) dissocia- 

 tion of parts seems to be proceeding, as shown by the 

 undoubtedly fasciated rays into which the fasciated 

 portion of the umbel divides, and by the presence of one- 

 flowered pedicels in different parts of the inflorescence ; 

 (2) the peduncle of the inflorescence is fasciated. 

 Thus the phenomenon probably consists of fasciation 

 of a single primary ray, and this would necessarily 

 cause a decrease in number of the normal rays, thus 

 giving rise to the appearance of fusion in order to 

 account for the diminished number. 



