FASCIATION AND ALLIED PHENOMENA. 



155 



FASCIATION AND ALLIED PHENOMENA. 



By Rev. Professor G. Henslow, M.A., &c. 



[A Paper read at the Scientific Committee, April 0, 1901.] 



Fasciated Stems. — Fasciation is a word derived from fascia, a bandage, 

 and is suggestive of the fasces, a bundle of rods tied round an axe which 

 the lictor carried before the chief magistrate at Rome, the rods indicating 

 the scourging of criminals, and the axe, beheading. 



The term was invented by Linnaeus, who regarded a fasciated stem as 

 being " the result of the formation of an unusual number of buds, the 

 shoots resulting from which became coherent as growth proceeded."* 



Dr. Masters follows Linnaeus in obser\ing : — " If it happen that an 

 unusual number of buds be formed in close apposition, so that they are 

 liable to be compressed during their growth, union is very likely to take 

 place, the more so from the softness of the young tissues. In this way it 

 is probable that what is termed fasciation is brought about." t 



M. Moquin-Tandon would refer fasciation to a flattening of a single 



Fig. 81. — Transverse section of a por- Fig. 82.— Transverse section of stem of 



tion of stem of Narcisms Tazetta, twin Eucharis. 



just below the umbel. 



stem, and not to a combination of several axes ; and observes that a 

 cross-section gives an elliptical and uniform series of fibro-vascular 

 bundles,^ with a central path or canal. The following observations will, 

 I think, prove that M. Moquin-Tandon is right so far ; but he does not 

 appear to account for the peculiar structure of fasciation. 



If the fasciated stem were compounded of several axes, one has grounds 

 for presuming that the vascular arrangements would indicate it, for if a 

 cross-section be made of the peduncle just below the insertion of the 

 pedicels of the umbel of Narcissus Tazetta, all the pedicels are there 

 already marked out and represented by six cords in each, but surrounded 

 by a common epidermis. (Fig. 81. > 



Secondly, when two stems are naturally coherent, as in a specimen 

 of a Eucharis in the writer's possession, there is an arrest of the cords 

 along the line of junction, but the others form two arcs, .so that the 

 figure in a cross-section is that of an hour-glass. (Fig. 82.) 



If the flowers cohere as well as the stalks, the arrest of cords is 



* Teratology, by Dr. M. T. Masters, p. 15. f Op. cit. p. 11. 



X As this phrase is cumbersome, I shall call them simply cords." 



