A very curious illustration of hypertrophy of the flower-stalk is recorded and figured by M. Carrière[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]
In this place may also be mentioned the hypertrophied condition of the placenta observed by Alphonse de Candolle in a species of Solanum, and also in a species of Melastoma. Not only was the placenta unusually large in these flowers, but it also protruded beyond the ovary.[495] A similar state of things in Lobelia and Cuphea has already been alluded to under the head of Alterations of Direction (p. 210).
The following singular growth in a tomato is described by the Rev. M. J. Berkeley in the 'Gardeners' Chronicle' for 1866, p. 1217, and appears to have been an extension of the placenta:—"On the first glance it seemed as if an unusually large grape-stone had accidentally fallen on the upper surface of the fruit, and was attached by the narrow base. The process was, however, five lines long, and much narrowed below, besides which, though it was pale green above, the base was coral-red, like the tomato itself. It grew on a narrow and shallow crack on the surface of the fruit, and was found below to communicate directly with a fibro-vascular bundle, which entered into the composition of a portion of the placenta. On making a vertical section, instead of being succulent, as I expected, it was white and spongy within, with several lacunae, and one or two irregular fibro-vascular bundles, with highly developed spiral vessels threading the centre. These vessels, moreover, were tinged with brown, as in many cases of diseased tissues. There was not the slightest appearance of placentæ or anything indicating an abortive fruit. On closer examination the cuticle was found to consist of thick-walled cells, exactly like those of the tomato, while the spongy mass consisted of a similar tissue to the fleshy portion of the fruit, but with far less wrinkled walls, and more indistinct intercellular spaces. The most striking point, however, was the immense quantity of very irregular and unequal starch-grains with which they were gorged, which gave a peculiar sparkling appearance to them when seen en masse. I am inclined to regard the body rather as an abortive axis than an undeveloped fruit. In almost all, if not all, these cases of abnormal growth, whether from leaves, petioles, fruit, or other portions of the plant, we find an immediate connection with one or more spiral vessels, which if not existent at first are developed sooner or later. In the present case the connection of the fibro-vascular tissue of the fruit and abnormal growth was plain enough, but whether it existed when the body was first given off I am unable to say, as it was fully developed when the fruit was brought to me."
Enlargement of the leaves.—Increase in the size or substance of leaves takes places in several ways, and affects the whole or only certain portions of them. The simplest form of this malformation is met with in our cabbages, which, by the art of the gardener, have been made to produce leaves of greater size and thickness than those which are developed in the wild form. In such instances the whole substance of the leaf is increased in bulk, and the increase affects the fibrous framework of the leaves as well as the cellular portions, though the exaggerated development of the latter is out of proportion to that of the former.
In some species of Podocarpus there may occasionally be seen at the base of the branchlets a dozen or more fleshy scales, of a rose colour, passing gradually into the ordinary leaves of the plant, and evidently analogous to the three fleshy confluent bracts which surround the ripe fruit.
In other instances, while the fibrous framework of the leaf retains its usual degree of development, the cellular parenchyma is developed in excess, and, if the increase is so arranged that the number of superposed layers of the cellular tissue is not increased, or their thickness exaggerated, then we get such leaves as those of the "kail," or of the "Savoys" leaves, which are technically called by descriptive botanists "folia bullata." In such leaves the disc of the leaf, rather than the margin, is increased and its surface is thrown up into little conical projections, which are hollow on the under side.
But leaves may increase beyond their usual size without such grave alterations of form as those to which allusion has just been made. It is well known that if a tree be cut down and new shoots be sent out from the stump, the leaves formed on these shoots very often greatly exceed the ordinary ones in dimensions. Such cases as this hardly come under the head of malformations. But where one part only of the leaf is excessively developed, the other portion remaining in its ordinary condition, there can be no hesitation in ranking the phenomenon as teratological.
Thus, Moquin says that the median nerve may be prolonged beyond the blade of the leaf in the form of a short strap or ribbon-like excrescence, while, at other times, the lateral parts of the leaf are subjected to undue development. He refers to a case cited by Schlotterbec[496] in which each side of the leaves of a yellow "violier" (wallflower) was dilated into a kind of projecting lobe on either side of the true apex of the leaf, thus rendering it in appearance three-lobed. M. Delavaud[497] puts on record a case of hypertrophy in the leaves of the common elm, resulting in the formation of an additional lobe and a return to the tricostate type. A leaf so affected is stated to have presented the appearance of a fusion of two leaves. (See also Multiplication of leaves, p. 353.)
The hypertrophied and coloured leaf of Gesnera occupying the place of the absent inflorescence has been previously alluded to under the head of displacement (p. 88).