Vegetable Teratology Part 59

[480] 'Phil. Bot.,' p. 119.

[481] 'Cat. Plant. Pyr,' p. 58.

[482] Moquin-Tandon, loc. cit., p. 328.

[483] For other instances see Chatin in 'Ann. Sc. Nat.,' 4 ser., vol. v, p. 305.

[484] See also Morren. 'Bull. Acad. Belg.,' xv, Fuchsia, p. 67.

[485] Cited in 'Bull. Soc. Bot., France,' t. xiv ("Rev. Bibl."), p. 253.

[486] 'Primit. Flor. Amurens.' p. 57.

[487] 'Flora.' 1848. p. 484.

BOOK IV.

DEVIATIONS FROM THE ORDINARY SIZE AND CONSISTENCE OF ORGANS.

In the animal kingdom the entire adult organism, as well as each of its separate parts, has certain dimensions, beyond which, under ordinary circ.u.mstances, it does not pa.s.s, either in the one direction or the other. It may not be easy or possible to state what the limits are, but, practically, this inability to frame a precise limitation is productive of no inconvenience. It is universally admitted that a certain animal attains such and such dimensions, and that one organ has a certain proportionate size as contrasted with another. The same rules hold good in the case of plants, though in them it is vastly more difficult to ascertain what may be called the normal dimensions or proportions.

Nevertheless observation and experience soon show what may be termed the average size of each plant, and any disproportion between the several organs is speedily detected.

When there is a general reduction in size throughout all the organs of a plant, or throughout all the nutritive organs, stem, leaves, &c., and the several portions partic.i.p.ate in this diminished size, we have what are generally termed "dwarf varieties," dwarf in comparison, that is, with the ordinary condition of the plants; on the other hand, if the entire plant, or, at least, if the whole of one set of organs be increased in size beyond the recognised average, we have large varieties, often qualified by such terms as _macrophylla_, _longifolia_, _macrantha_, &c. &c. In all these cases either the entire plant or whole series of organs are alike increased or diminished beyond average limits; and such variations are often very constant, and are transmitted by hereditary transmission. It may be supposed that such deviations may have originated, in the first instance, either from excessive use, or from disuse, or from the agency of certain conditions promoting or checking growth, as the case may be; but whether or no, it is certain that these variations often persist under different conditions, and that they often retain their distinctive characters side by side with plants presenting the normal average dimensions. In other cases the variations in size are of a less general character, and affect certain organs of a whorl in a relative manner, as, for instance, in the case of didynamous or tetradynamous stamens, where two or four stamens are longer than their fellows, the long or short stamens and styles of di- and tri-morphic flowers, &c. These differences are sometimes connected with the development of parts in succession, and not simultaneously.

Teratological deviations of size differ from those of which mention has just been made chiefly in this, that they are more limited in their manifestations. It is not, as a rule, the whole plant, or the whole series of nutritive or of reproductive organs, that are affected, but it is certain parts only; the alteration in size is more a relative change than an absolute one.

For convenience sake the teratological alterations of size may be divided into those which are the result of increased growth and those which arise from diminished action. It will be seen, therefore, that in these instances it is the bulk of the organs that is increased, not their number; moreover, their development or metamorphosis is not necessarily altered. In connection with increased size an alteration of consistence is so frequent that the two phenomena are here taken together. It will be borne in mind that the changes of consistence from membranous to succulent or woody are very frequent in the ordinary course of development. They may also occur as accidental phenomena, or the normal conditions of any particular flower or fruit may be exactly reversed, the usually succulent fruit becoming dry and capsular, and so forth.

PART I.

HYPERTROPHY.

The term hypertrophy may serve as a general one to comprise all the instances of excessive growth and increased size of organs, whether the increase be general or in one direction merely. General hypertrophy is more a variation than a deformity, unless indeed it be caused by insect puncture or the presence of a fungus, in which case the excessive size results from a diseased condition. For our present purpose hypertrophy may be considered as it affects the axile or the foliar organs, and also according to the way in which the increased size is manifested, as by increased thickness or swelling--intumescence, or by augmented length-elongation, by expansion or flattening, or, lastly, by the formation of excrescences or outgrowths, which may be cla.s.sed under the head of luxuriance or enation.

As size must be considered in this place relatively, it is not possible to lay down any precise line separating what are considered to be the normal dimensions from those which are abnormal.

In practice no inconvenience will be found to accrue from this inability to establish a fixed rule, and we may say that an hypertrophied organ is one which, from some cause or other, attains dimensions which are not habitual to the plant in its usual, healthy, well-formed state.

It will be seen that under this general head of hypertrophy, increase of size, however brought about, is included; thus, not only increase in length, but also in thickness; alterations of substance or consistence, no less than of dimensions, are here grouped together. The alterations of consistence resulting from an inordinate development of cellular, fibrous, or ligneous tissue, are, of course, strictly h.o.m.ologous with the similar changes which occur, under ordinary circ.u.mstances, during the ripening of fruits or otherwise.

Hypertrophy, whatever form it may a.s.sume, may be so slight as not perceptibly to interfere with the functions of the part affected, or it may exist to such an extent as to impair the due exercise of its office.

It may affect any or all parts of the plant, and is generally coexistent with, if not actually dependent on, some other malformation. Thus, the inordinate growth of some parts is most generally attended by deficiency in the size and number of others, as in the peripheral florets of _Viburnum_ or _Hydrangea_, where the corollas are relatively very large, and the stamens and pistils abortive.

CHAPTER I.

ENLARGEMENT.

A swollen or thickened condition (_renflement_) is usually the result of a disproportionate formation of the cellular tissue as contrasted with the woody framework of the plant. We see marked instances of it in cultivated carrots and turnips, the normal condition of the roots or root-stocks in these plants being one of considerable hardness and toughness, and their form slender, tapering, and more or less branched.

The disproportionate development of cellular tissue is also seen in tubers and bulbs, and in the swollen stems of such plants as _Echinocactus_, _Adenium obesum_, some species of _Vitis_, &c. So, too, the upper portion of the flower-stalk occasionally becomes much dilated, so as ultimately to form a portion of the fruit. But it is not necessary to give farther ill.u.s.trations of this common tendency in some organs to become hypertrophied. As a result of injury from insects or fungi, galls and excrescences of various kinds are very common, but their consideration lies beyond the scope of the present work.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 200.--_Pelargonium_, one branch of which was hypertrophied.]

=Enlargement of axile organs.=--All the species of _Pelargonium_, _Geranium_, _Mirabilis,_ as well as those of _Caryophylleae_ and other orders, have tumid nodes as a normal occurrence. In the genus _Pelargonium_ this swelling is sometimes not confined to the nodes, but extends to the inters.p.a.ces between them, _e.g._ _P. spinosum_. This condition, which happens as a natural feature in the species just named, may also occur as an exceptional thing in others. The author is indebted to Dr. Sankey for a branch of _Pelargonium_ which was thus thickened, the remaining branches not being in any way affected. The leaves on the swollen branch were smaller than the others, and their stalks more flattened. There was, in this instance, no trace of fungus or insect to account for the swelling of a single branch, which might, therefore, be due to bud-variation, perhaps to reversion to some ancestral form. The repeated cross fertilisations to which Pelargoniums have been subjected render this hypothesis not an improbable one.

As an accompaniment to a spiral torsion of the woody fibres, this distension of the stem is frequently met with, as in _Valeriana_, _Dipsacus,_ &c. (See Spiral Torsion.)

=Knaurs.=--On certain trees, such as the oak, the hornbeam, some species of _Crataegus_, &c., hard woody lumps may occasionally be seen projecting, varying greatly in size, from that of a pea to that of a cocoa-nut. They are covered with bark, and consist in the interior of very hard layers of wood disposed irregularly, so as to form objects of beauty for cabinet-makers' purposes. From the frequent presence of small atrophied leaf-buds on their surface, it would seem as if the structures in question were shortened branches, in which the woody layers had become inordinately developed, as if by compensation for the curtailment in length.[488] The cause of their formation is not known, but it has been ascertained that they are not due to insect agency. Knaurs may occasionally be used for purposes of propagation, as in the case of the "uovoli of the olive" and the "burrs" that are formed on some varieties of apple, from which both roots and leaf-shoots are produced in abundance.

A distinction must be drawn between those instances in which the swelling is solid throughout from the excessive formation of cellular tissue, and those wherein it is hollow from the more rapid growth of the outer as contrasted with the inner portions. These latter cases might be cla.s.sed under the head of distension.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 201.--Formation of tubers or hypertrophied buds in the axils of leaves in the potato.]

=Enlargement of the buds= may be seen in the case of bulbs and tubers.

Occasionally these organs are developed in the axils of leaves, when their nature becomes apparent. A swollen bud or bulbil in this situation is not uncommon in some cultivated tulips and lilies. The presence of small tubers in the axils of the leaves in the potato, as shown in fig. 201, is also not unfrequent.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 202.--Inflorescence of ash (_Fraxinus_), with hypertrophied pedicels, flowers absent.]

=Enlargement of the flower-stalk.=--The cauliflower and broccoli afford familiar ill.u.s.trations of hypertrophy of the flower-stalk, accompanied by a corresponding defective development of the flowers. In the case of the ash the terminal pedicels occasionally become swollen and distorted, while the flowers are completely deficient, as shown in the adjacent cut (fig. 202).

In grapes a similar condition may occasionally be met with in which the terminal pedicels become greatly swollen and fused into a solid ma.s.s. It would seem probable that this change is due to insect puncture, or to the effect of fungus growth at an early stage of development, but as to this point there is at present no evidence.[489]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 203.--Monstrous pear, showing extension and ramification of the succulent floral axis. The bases of the sepals are also succulent.]

In the apple a dilatation of the flower-stalk below the ordinary fruit may occasionally be observed, thus giving rise to the appearance of two fruits superposed and separated one from the other by a constriction.

(See fig. 176, p. 327.) The lower swelling is entirely axial in these cases, as no trace of carpels is to be seen. M. Carriere[490] mentions an instance wherein from the base of one apple projected a second smaller one, dest.i.tute of carpels, but surmounted by calyx-lobes as usual. The direction of this supernumerary apple was the exact opposite of that of the primary fruit.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 204.--Monstrous pear, showing extension and swelling of axis, &c.]

In pears, quinces, and apples, a not uncommon deviation is one in which the axis is prolonged beyond the ordinary fruit, like which it is much swollen. Occasionally the axis is not only prolonged, but even ramifies, the branches partaking of the succulent character of the ordinary pome.

Such instances are frequently cla.s.sed under the head of prolification, but they have in general no claim to be considered in this light, for the reasons already given in the chapter relating to that subject. (See p. 135.)[491]

A very curious ill.u.s.tration of hypertrophy of the flower-stalk is recorded and figured by M. Carriere[492] in the cherry. The calyx in these fruits was completely superior, the succulent portion of the fruit being made up of the dilated extremity of the peduncle, and possibly in part of the base of the calyx. The general appearance was thus that of a crab-apple. There was no stone in the interior, but simply a rudimentary kernel or seed.[493]

Moquin-Tandon records an instance in which the stamens of each individual flower in the inflorescence of a vine were hypertrophied, the sepals, petals, and other organs of the flower, being proportionately diminished.[494]