When flowers are borne on these fasciated stems they are generally altered in structure; sometimes the thalamus itself becomes more or less fasciated or flattened, and the different organs of the flower are arranged on an elliptical axis. A case of this nature is described by Schlechtendal ('Bot. Zeit.,' 1857, p. 880), in _Cytisus nigricans_, and M. Moquin-Tandon describes an instance in the vine in one flower of which sepals, petals, stamens, and ovary were abortive, while the receptacle was hypertrophied and fasciated, and bore on its surface a few adventitious buds.[11] The pedicels of _Streptocarpus Rexii_ have also been observed in a fasciated state.[12] It has been occasionally observed that the fasciated condition is hereditary; thus, Moquin relates that some seeds of a fasciated _Cirsium_ reproduced the same condition in the seedlings,[13] while a similar tendency is inherited in the case of the cockscomb (_Celosia_). With reference to the nature of the deformity in question there is a difference of opinion; while most authors consider it to be due to the causes before mentioned, Moquin was of opinion that fasciation was due to a flattening of a single stem or branch. Linnaeus, on the other hand, considered such stems to be the result of the formation of an unusual number of buds, the shoots resulting from which became coherent as growth proceeded:--"_Fasciata dici solet planta cum plures caules connascuntur, ut unus ex plurimis instar fasciae evadat et compressus_" (Linn., 'Phil. Bot.,' 274). A similar opinion was held by J. D. Major in a singular book entitled 'De Planta, Monstrosa, Gottorpiensi,' Schleswig, 1665, wherein the stem of a _Chrysanthemum_ is depicted in the fasciated condition. [Illustration: FIG. 7.--Fasciation in the scape of the Dandelion (_Leontodon Taraxacum_).] The striae, which these stems almost invariably present, exhibit the lines of junction, and the spiral or other curvatures and contraction, which are so often met with, may be accounted for by the unequal growth of one portion of the stem as contrasted with that of another. Against this view Moquin cites the instances of one-stemmed plants, such as _Androsace maxima_, but, on the other hand, those herbaceous plants having usually but a single stem not unfrequently produce several which may remain distinct, but not uncommonly become united together. Prof. Hincks[14] cites cases of this kind in _Primula vulgaris_, _Hieracium aureum_, and _Ranunculus bulbosus_. I have myself met with several cases of the kind in _Primula veris_, in the Polyanthus, in the Daisy, and in the _Leontodon Taraxacum_, in which latter a fusion of two or more flower-stems bearing at the top a composite flower, and made up of two, three, four, or more flowers combined together, and containing all the organs that would be present in the same flowers if separate, is very common.