Vegetable Teratology / An Account of the Principal Deviations from the Usual Construction of Plants

by Maxwell T. Masters

FOOTNOTES:

[210] The following details as to the method pursued by Mr. McNab, of the Edinburgh Botanic Garden, may not be uninteresting in this place. They are from the pen of Mr. Anderson, and originally appeared in the 'Gardeners' Chronicle.'

"The mode of inducing leaders to proceed from laterals is a matter of comparatively little concern among the generality of deciduous trees, for they are often provided with subsidiary branches around the leader, at an angle of elevation scarcely less perpendicular, but the laterals of all Conifers stand, as nearly as possible, at right angles. Imagine the consternation of most people when the leader of, say, Picea nobilis, P. Nordmanniana, or P. Lowii is destroyed."

In a specimen of the latter plant the leader had been mischievously destroyed, to remedy which Mr. McNab adopted means which Mr. Anderson goes on to describe. "Looking from the leader downward to the first tier of laterals, there appeared to have been a number of adventitious leaf-buds created, owing to the coronal bud being destroyed. These were allowed to plump up unmolested until the return of spring, when every one was scarified or rubbed off but the one nearest the extremity. To assist its development and restrain the action of the numerous laterals, every one was cut back in autumn, and this restraint upon the sap acted so favorably upon the incipient leader as to give it the strength and stamina of the original leader, so that nothing detrimental was evident twelve months after the accident had happened, and only a practical eye could detect that there had been any mishap at all. This beautifully simple process saved the baby tree.

"Another example of retrieving lost leaders may be quoted as illustrative of many in similar circumstances. Pícea Webbiana had its leader completely destroyed down to the first tier of laterals. There was no such provision left for inducing leaf-buds as was the case with P. Lowii above referred to. Resort must, therefore, be had to one of the best favoured laterals, but how is it to be coaxed from the horizontal position of a lateral to the perpendicular position of a leader? The uninitiated in these matters, and, in fact, practical gardeners generally, would at once reply, by supporting to a stake with the all-powerful Cuba or bast-matting. But no. A far simpler method than that, namely, by fore-shortening all the laterals of the upper tier but the one selected for a leader. Nature becomes the handmaid of art here; for without the slightest prop the lateral gradually raises itself erect, and takes the place of the lost leader. All that the operator requires to attend to is the amputation of the laterals until this adventitious fellow has gained a supremacy. Singular provision in nature this, which, thanks to the undivided attention of a careful observer, has been fully appreciated and utilized."

[211] 'Variation of Animals and Plants,' ii, p. 277.

[212] Quoted in 'Gard. Chron.,' 1867, p. 654.

[213] Loc. cit., p. 315.

[214] 'Rev. Hortic.,' 1868, p. 110.

[215] Planchon and Marès, 'Ann. Sc. Nat.,' 5 ser., tom. vi, 1866, p. 228, tab. xii.

[216] 'Bull. Acad. Belg.,' xviii, part ii, p. 293.

BOOK II.
DEVIATIONS FROM THE ORDINARY FORM OF ORGANS.

In a morphological point of view the form of the various parts or organs of plants and the changes to which they are subjected during their development are only second in importance to the diversities of arrangement and, indeed, in some cases, do not in any degree hold a second place.

Taken together, the arrangement, form, and number of the several parts of the flower, make up what has been termed the symmetry of the flower.[217] Referring to the assumed standard of comparison, [see p. 4], it will be seen that in the typically regular flower all the various organs are supposed to be regular in their dimensions and form. At one time it was even supposed that all flowers, no matter how irregular they subsequently became, began by being strictly symmetrical or regular, and that subsequent alterations were produced by inequality of growth or development. The researches of organogenists have, however, dispelled this idea of unvarying primordial regularity, by showing that in many cases flowers are irregular from the very first, that some begin by being irregular, and subsequently become regular, and even in some cases resume their original condition during the course of their development.[218] Under these circumstances an artificial standard of comparison becomes almost an absolute necessity for the time being.

Changes of form very generally, but not always, are accompanied with a change in regularity: thus a flower habitually bi-lateral may assume the characters of radiating symmetry and vice versâ. Increase or decrease of size very frequently also are co-existent with an alteration in the usual form.

In the case of the arrangement of organs it is often difficult or impossible, in the present state of our knowledge, to determine whether a given arrangement is congenital or acquired subsequently to the first development, whether for instance an isolation of parts be due to primordial separation or to a subsequent disunion of originally combined organs, [see p. 58]. With reference to the changes in the form of organs, however, it is in general more easy to ascertain the proximate cause of the appearance, and thus teratological changes of form may be grouped according as they are due to, 1, arrest of development; 2, undue or excessive development; 3, perverted development; and 4, irregular development; hence the use of the following terms—Stasimorphy, Pleiomorphy, Metamorphy, and Heteromorphy—to include teratological changes really or apparently due to one or other of the causes above mentioned. The classification here adopted is of course to a considerable extent an arbitrary one and subject to correction or modification, as the knowledge of the development of the flowers in the various genera of plants advances.