On “ Fasciation” 
65 
under my notice last summer, and as a result of its examination 
I draw the following conclusion as to the origin of many of such 
peloric blooms. Owing to precocious development (the outcome 
probably of luxuriant nutrition) of two or more uppermost lateral 
flowers of the raceme, the vegetative apex- of the latter possesses no 
chance of further growth, while the said flowers not only entirely 
use up the apex, but owing to their close mutual proximity, inevi¬ 
tably become congenitally united' to form a quasi-single and 
perfectly terminal flower, differing from the normal flowers in 
its much larger size and in possessing radial, instead of dorsiventral, 
symmetry. 
A 
Fig. 19. A Floral diagram of “ fasciated ” flower of Crocus ; B transverse 
section of ovary of normal flower ; C ditto of “ fasciated flower.” 
I saw last autumn on a shoot of Marrubium vulgare a 
cucullate foliage-leaf which was perfectly terminal to the shoot and 
of radial symmetry; this is an instance of a leaf, normally dorsi¬ 
ventral, which is becoming peloric. 
All such cases as these represent a kind of “ fasciation 2 for 
here no subsequent branching succeeds the primary fusion. Yet 
they cannot be regarded as equivalent to the cases of congenital 
negative dedoublement.for in this latter the ultimate product of fusion, 
except where the latter has been of comparatively recent occurrence, 
1 The term is here employed in its actual kinetic sense. 
2 See infra. 
