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SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE, MAY 7. 



xlvii 



substance they were soft and fleshy, easily cut with a penknife, and 

 apparently solid. Under the microscope the cell structure was found to 

 be that of the host-plant, and there were no traces of mycelium. All the 

 evidence seemed to indicate that these bodies were a kind of gall pro- 

 duced by the plant in consequence of some such irritation as that caused 

 by the puncture of an insect. Unfortunately we could find no trace of 

 egg, larva, or insect ; but it is in that direction we believe further 

 investigation should be directed, and the plant should be watched for 

 further developments. In both instances, therefore, we were only par- 

 tially successful, and shall at any time be glad to examine either in a 

 more advanced stage, when doubtless we shall have to relegate the latter 

 to the entomologist." (Fig. 122.) 



Daffodils, Monstrous. — Rev. W. Wilks showed a specimen of what 

 ought to have been a large trumpet Daffodil, but the peduncle bore two 

 flowers of nearly the ordinary size of the wild Daffodil, instead of a 

 single and large blossom. There was no fasciation. It was interesting 

 as a reversion to the form and size of the wild Daffodil, in consequence 

 of there being two flowers in place of one. Mr. W. Logan, of Hither 

 Green, Lewisham, sent specimens which had the corona split up into 

 segments, and more or less crested. One-half of the trumpet was 

 elongated, the other half abbreviated, possibly indicating a double 

 parentage of N. poeticus crossed with the Daffodil. In another case the 

 leaf was sheathed, as occurs in grasses ; the flower had five perianth 

 leaves, five stamens, and two carpels, due to a partial arrest of growth on 

 one side of the flower. 



Ferns, Crested. — Mr. Druery remarked that in the discussion on 

 fasciation on April 9 he feared he did not make himself quite clear, as he 

 certainly did not wish to imply any correlation between extra division, e.g. 

 tripinnation and cresting ; he intended to cite cases in which the two 

 things were associated, every terminal major or minor even to the fourth 

 or quadrupinnate degree of division assuming that fissile character known 

 as cresting. He added that there is this difference between cresting and 

 fasciation. In the latter, as the term itself implies, the multiplied apices 

 of growth keep together and build up a more or less solid structure, with 

 little or no tendency to separate or ramify independently ; in the former, 

 on the other hand, the tendency, he thought he might say, invariably is 

 to ramify again and again as speedily as possible after the multiple apices 

 of growth are generated. Clearly, then, although both abnormalities 

 spring from a like tendency in the normally single apical cells to split up 

 into several or many, they are essentially dift'erent in their ultimate 

 developments, and the word fasciation can only properly apply to one of 

 them. He also pointed out that in fasciated plants, e.g. the Lilies, when 

 the leaves or flowers are formed, there is no tendency to form multifid 

 tips to them or their component parts, whereas in ferns this is always 

 seen according to the degree in which the general tendency presents 

 itself. Prof. Henslow observed that Mr. Druery was perfectly correct. 

 The term " fasciation " was only applied by Linn}i?us to stems ; but as 

 it is correlated with a continual branching of the fibro-vascular cords, he 

 classed it with several other phenomena of foliar organs, which are 

 associated with a similar repeated chorisis of the cords, as e.g. in crested 



