CHAPTER XXVII.
MONSTROSITIES AND MALFORMATIONS.
Monstrosities—Teratology—Atrophy of organs—Shanking of grapes—Barren fruit trees—Dwarfing—Distortions and malformations—Fasciations—Flattened roots—Torsions—Curling and puckering—Leaf rolling—So-called "spontaneous" teratological changes.
Monstrosities.—In a wide sense this term is applicable to many cases here treated under other headings, and signifies any departure from the normal standard of size, form, arrangement, or number of parts, and so forth, due to arrest of growth, excessive growth of parts, or of the whole organs, etc.
Such teratological conditions are however by no means always pathological: that is to say, they may be variations which do not threaten the existence of the plant. In some cases they are clearly due to exuberant nutrition, and although they may occasionally predispose to disease, in others they show no evidence of doing so. The whole practice of horticulture and agriculture abounds in examples of teratological sports or varieties which are transmissible by seeds, budding and grafting, and other means—e.g. double flowers, hypertrophied floral organs (cauliflowers), seedless grapes and oranges, crested ferns, etc.; and even when such varieties could not live as such in a state of nature, there is evidence to show that many of them readily revert to the original seed-bearing or single condition, and adapt themselves to the altered environment.
Every part of the plant may exhibit teratological changes, and I shall for the most part select cases in illustration which indicate approach to pathological states, and group with them cases known to be pathological in origin.
Atrophy is a common phenomenon denoting dwindling or reductions in size of organs due to insufficient nutrition, or arrest of growth from various causes.
Atrophy of leaves is a common result of the attacks of parasitic fungi, even when the latter induce local hypertrophy—i.e. excessive growth of particular parts, e.g. Synchytrium on Dandelions and Anemones. Puccinia suaveolens causes partial atrophy of the leaves of Thistles, Aecidium Euphorbiae of those of Euphorbia.
The carpels of Anemone are atrophied in plants attacked by Aecidium, and the whole flower is suppressed in Cherries infested with Exoascus Cerasi, while other fungi—e.g. Cystopus, Exoasci, etc.—cause atrophy of the seeds, and numerous instances of atrophied grain occur in plants infested with Ustilagineae.
Atrophy of the grains of cereals is sometimes due to the direct attack of animals, e.g. eel-worms (Tylenchus) eat out the grains of Corn; weevils and other beetles (Curculio, Bruchus, etc.) similarly devour the contents of grain and nuts, the flowers of Peas and Apples, and so forth, inducing atrophy of the parts left. Still more striking cases are afforded by small insects which bore into the halms of cereals, and cause atrophy of the whole ear—e.g. Cephus in Wheat and Rye. Barley occasionally withers after flowering, the grain atrophying from no known cause, terms like consumption given to the disease conveying no information.
Atrophy of young fruits is commonly due to the flowers not setting—i.e. some agent has interfered with the normal transference of the pollen to the stigma. This may be due to excessive rain washing out the pollen (e.g. Vine), to a lack of the necessary insects which effect pollination, often seen in greenhouse plants; to the stamens being barren—e.g. certain varieties of Vine—or to the premature destruction of the stigmas by frost, as in Cherries, Pears, etc., or by insects, as in Apples, or fungi, e.g. the infection of bilberries with Sclerotinia; or even by poisonous gases, as is sometimes seen in Wheat, etc., growing near alkali works. Drought is also a common cause of atrophy of young Plums.
Shanking of Grapes is a particular case of atrophy and drooping of the immature fruits, due to the supplies being cut off by some agency. It may arise from very various causes which bring about disease in the leaves or roots, and should always be looked upon as a sign of weakness in the Vine, the structure of which is affected, e.g. poor wood—or the functions interfered with, e.g. water supplies deficient owing to paucity of roots.
Barren Apple, Pear, Plum, and other flowers are often found to have been bored through the petals while in bud, and the whole "heart" of the flower eaten out by the grubs of Anthonomus, leaving the unopened buds brown and dead, as if killed by frost or drought, and often erroneously supposed to be so.
The wilting and shrivelling of Clover is sometimes due to Sclerotinia, the mycelium of which pervades the roots and stock, on which the sclerotia may be found. Lucerne is similarly killed in Europe by the barren mycelium of Leptosphaeria, which may be found as a purple mat on the roots.
Dwarfing consists in partial atrophy of all the organs, and is a common result of starvation in poor, dry, shallow soils, as may often be seen in the case of weeds on walls or in stony places. Dwarfs which are thus developed in consequence of perennial drought are not, however, necessarily diseased, in the more specific sense of the word; their organs are reduced in size proportionally throughout in adaptation to the conditions, and simply carry out their functions on a smaller scale.
Dwarfing is frequently a consequence of the lack of food materials, or of some particular ingredient in the soil, and in such cases is a diseased condition of some danger; similar results may ensue in soils containing the necessary chemical elements, but in unavailable forms.
Dwarfing may also be brought about by repeated maiming, nipping off the buds, pruning, etc., as in the miniature trees of the Japanese; and the case of trees continually browsed down by cattle, or of moor plants perennially dwarfed by cutting winds, are further illustrations in the same category, as are also those of certain alpine and moraine plants, whose only chance of survival depends on their adapting themselves to the repeated prunings suffered by every young shoot which rises into the cutting winds, since there is no question of lack of food-materials in these cases.
The practice of the Japanese is to pinch out the growing tips of the shoots wherever they wish to prune back, and it is by the judicious use of this heading in, and suitable pot-culture, that the dwarfs are made, 6-20 inches high at from 30-80 years old.
Dwarfing is often brought about by grafting on a slow-growing stock, and this method is employed in practice, as are also heading in, pruning of roots, and confinement in pots.
Dwarfing may also be due to poor or shrivelled—partially atrophied—seeds or such as have had their endosperms or embryos injured by insects or fungi, and although it is possible to nurse such dwarfs into normal and vigorous plants with good culture, they do not usually recover under natural conditions in competition with more vigorous plants.
Distortions or Malformations may be defined as abnormalities in the form of organs which concern all, or nearly all the parts, and do not refer merely to swellings or excrescences on them or excavations, etc., in them.
Fasciation.—Shoots of Asparagus, Pine, Ash, and many other plants are occasionally expanded into broad ribbon-like structures often studded with more than the normal number of buds or leaves, etc., such as would be found on the usual cylindrical shoots. Such fasciations are due to several buds fusing laterally under compression when young and the whole mass growing up in common, or, in a few cases, to the unilateral overgrowth of one side of the terminal bud. Fasciations appear to depend on excessive nutrition in rich soils. They may spread out above in a fan-like manner, exaggerating the abnormality, or they may revert to the original form. Some cases are more or less fixed by heredity—e.g. Celosia. Fasciated stems are frequently curved like a crozier, owing to one edge growing more rapidly than the other.
Cauliflowers are really cultivated monstrosities. Fasciated Dandelions, Crepis, monstrous Chrysanthemums, peloric Linaria, five-leaved Clovers, spiral Teazels, etc., may all, if grown with care, be kept more or less constant in the monstrous state. That is to say, the particular kinds of variation here manifested can be maintained in proportion as the external conditions controlling the variation are maintained. Such conditions are chiefly rich supplies of food-stuffs, plenty of water and air, suitable temperature and lighting, etc. Mutilations, favouring the development of abnormal buds may also induce fasciations.
Torsions or spiral twistings of stems also frequently arise among plants grown in rich soils, and are often combined with fasciations—e.g. Asparagus, Dipsacus; and De Vries has shown that the peculiarity is not only transmissible by seed, but may be more or less fixed by appropriate culture.
Contortions of stems are often due to the unequal growth on different sides of the stems owing to the presence of fungi—e.g. Caeoma on Pines, Aecidium on Nettles, also Puccinia on petioles of Mallow, Cystopus on inflorescences of Capsella, etc.
Distortions of roots may be brought about in various ways by the hindrances afforded by stones.
Spiral roots occur occasionally in pot plants.
Flattened roots usually result from compression between rocks, the young root having penetrated into a crevice, and been compelled to adapt itself later. The distortions of stems by constricting climbers, wire, etc., have been described, and fruits—e.g. Gourds—are easily distorted by means of string tied round them when young.
Distortions of leaves are very common, and are sometimes teratological—i.e. due to no known cause—e.g. the pitcher-like or hood-like cucullate leaves of the Lime, Cabbage, Pelargonium, etc., and of fused pairs in Crassula. Also coherent, bifurcate, crested, displaced and twisted leaves occasionally met with, and in some cases fixed by cultivation, may be placed in this category.
Puckers must be distinguished from pustules, since they consist in local upraisings of the whole tissue, not swellings—e.g. the yellowish green pockets on Walnut leaves, due to Phyllereum.
Puckered leaves in which the area of mesophyll between the venation is increased by rising up in an arched or dome-like manner are sometimes brought about by excessive moisture in a confined space.
Leaf-curl is a similar deformation caused by fungi, such as Exoascus on Peaches.
Wrinkling or puckering of leaves is also a common symptom of the work of Aphides—e.g. Hops.
Characteristic curling and puckering, with yellow and orange tints, of the terminal leaves of Apples, Pears, etc., are due to insects of the genera Aphis, Psylla, etc.
Small red and yellow spots with puckerings and curlings of the young leaves of Pears, the spots turning darker later on, are due to Phytoptus.
Leaf-rolling.—The leaves of Beeches, Poplars, Limes, and many other plants, instead of opening out flat, are often rolled in from the margins, or from the apex, by various species of Phytoptus, Cecidomyia, or other insects, which puncture or irritate the epidermis in the young stages and so arrest its expansion in proportion to the other tissues. According as the lower or upper surface is attacked the rolling is from the morphologically upper surface downwards, or vice versa. Very often the mesophyll is somewhat thickened where rolled and Erineum-like hairs may be developed—e.g. Lime. Many caterpillars also roll leaves, drawing the margins inward to form shelters—e.g. Tortrix viridana, the Oak leaf-roller. Certain beetles—Rhynchitis—also roll up several leaves to form a shelter in which the eggs are laid.
Webs are formed among the mutilated leaves of Apples by the caterpillars of Hyponomeuta.
It must be borne in mind that instances can be found of teratological change of every organ in the plant—e.g. stamens transformed into carpels or into petals; anthers partly polliniferous and partly ovuliferous; ovules producing pollen in their interior, and so on, being simply a few startling examples of what may happen. Such abnormalities are frequently regarded as evidence of internal causes of disease, and this may be true in given cases; in a number of cases investigated, however, it has been shown that external agents of very definite nature bring about just such deformations as those sometimes cited as examples of teratology due to internal causes, and the question is at least an open one whether many other cases will not also fall into this category. The study of galls has shown that insects can induce the formation of not only very extraordinary outgrowths of tissues and organs already in existence, but even of new formations and of tissue elements not found elsewhere in the plant or even in its allies; and Solms' investigations on Ustilago Treubii show that fungi can do the same, and even compel new tissues, which the stimulating effects of the hyphae have driven the plant to develop, to take part in raising and distributing the spores of the fungus—i.e. to assume functions for the benefit of the parasite. Molliard has given instances of mites whose irritating presence in flowers causes them to undergo teratological deformations, and Peyritsch has shown that the presence of mites in flowers induces transformations of petals into sepals, stamens into petals. Similarly De Bary, Molliard, Magnus, Mangin, and Giard have given numerous cases of the transformation of floral organs one into another under the irritating action of fungi, of which the transformation of normally unisexual (female) flowers into hermaphrodite ones, by the production of stamens not otherwise found there, are among the most remarkable.
These and similar examples suffice to awaken doubts as to whether any teratological change really arises "spontaneously," especially when we learn how slight a mechanical irritation of the growing point may induce changes in the flower; e.g. Sachs showed that a sunflower head is profoundly altered by pricking the centre of the torus, and Molliard got double flowers by mechanical irritation.
Notes to Chapter XXVII.
For the details and classification of the multitude of facts, the student is referred to Masters' Vegetable Teratology, Ray Society, 1869, and the pages of the Gardeners' Chronicle since that date.
Concerning torsions, etc., the student should read De Vries, "On Biastrepsis in its Relation to Cultivation," Ann. of Bot., Vol. XIII., 1899, p. 395, and "Hybridising of Monstrosities," Hybrid Conference Report, Roy. Hort. Soc., 1900, Vol. XXIV., p. 69.
The reader will find an excellent account of the abnormalities in flowers due to the action of parasitic insects and fungi in Molliard, "Cécidies Florales," Ann. des Sc. Nat., Ser. VIII., Bot., T. 1, 1895, p. 67.
