W. C. Worse!ell. 
23 
AN ABNORMAL SHOOT OF PINUS THUNBERGII PARL. 
By W. C. Worsdell, F.L.S., 
Jodrell Laboratory , Royal Gardens, Kew. 
[With Five Figures in the Text.] 
N apical piece of shoot of Pinns Thunbergii Pari, shewing 
unusual features was forwarded to the Director of Kew 
Gardens by Sir E. G. Loder,of Leonardslee, Horsham. The Director 
placed it at my disposal for description. The terminal portion of the 
shoot, which exhibited the abnormality, was about 8 inches in length, 
and bore four or five buds at the apex. 
Eight or nine of the scale-leaves in the lower half of the length 
of shoot bore ordinary 2-needled spur-shoots in their axils. The 
majority of the remaining scale-leaves subtended quite a different 
kind of axillary shoot, and in this consists the abnormality to be 
described. 1 have seen a considerable number of shoots and cones 
in the Abietineae which diverge, in one way or another, from the 
usual conformation, but never before have 1 come across such a 
condition as that which is about to be described. 
The most frequent form which the abnormal axillary structure 
assumes is that of a swollen fleshy foliar organ arching outwards 
over or against the subtending scale-leaf. Such structures are 
aggregated in great numbers towards the apex of the shoot below 
the group of buds. Frequently these bright-green swollen leaves 
bear a distinct outgrowth on their adaxial surface, sometimes a pair 
of such outgrowths ; and these clearly represent one or two further 
leaves situated higher up on the axillary shoot, which have become 
fused with the lowermost recurved one. 
Another form which the axillary shoot assumes is that of a pair 
of transversely-placed fleshy leaves, each about half the size of the 
single recurved leaf above-mentioned, or smaller, enclosing between 
them one or two extra smaller pairs of fleshy foliar organs. All 
these leaves, from those of the first pair upwards, may he, owing to 
the very contracted space in which they arise, considerably dis¬ 
placed from the normal position, and here and there irregular 
fusions may occur, as also correlative modifications in development. 
In several cases the spur-shoots begin with the same transversely- 
placed pair of fleshy leaves, as in the cases of the axillary shoots 
just cited, being immediately followed by the usual scale-leaves of 
the spur-shoot. 
