In the next
year this line becomes the base from which the stem grows. In such cases
the fasciated stems [410] are broadened and flattened from the very
beginning, and often retain the incipient breadth throughout their
further development. Species of primroses (_Primula japonica_ and
others), of buttercups (_Ranunculus bulbosus_), the rough hawksbeard
(_Crepis biennis_), the Aster _Tripolium_, and many others could be
given as instances.
Some of these are so rare as to be considered as poor races, and in
cultural trials do not produce the anomaly except in a very few
instances. Heads of rye are found in a cleft condition from time to
time, single at their base and double at the top, but this anomaly is
only exceptionally repeated from seed. Flattened stems of _Rubia
tinctorum_ are not unfrequently met with on the fields, but they seem to
have as little hereditary tendency as the split rye (_Secale Cereale_).
Many other instances could be given. Both in the native localities and
in pedigree-cultures such ribboned stems are only seen from time to
time, in successive years, in annual and biennial as well as in
perennial species. The purple pedicularis (_Pedicularis palustris_) in
the wild state, and the sunflower among cultivated plants, may be cited
instead of giving a long list of analogous instances.
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