When an organ becomes divided it receives at the hands of descriptive botanists the appellations cleft, partite, or sect, according to the depth of the division; hence in considering the teratological instances of this nature, the term fission has suggested itself as an appropriate one to be applied to the subdivision of an habitually entire or undivided organ. It thus corresponds pretty nearly in its application with the term Chorisis or "dedoublement," or with the "disjonctions qui divisent les organes" of Moquin-Tandon.[67] It is usually, but not always, a concomitant with hypertrophy, and dependent on luxuriance of growth. It must be understood therefore that the term, as generally applied, does not so much indicate the cleavage of a persistent organ, as it does the formation and development of two or more growing points instead of one, whence results a branching or forking (di-tri-chotomy) of the affected organ. In some instances it seems rather to be due to the relative deficiency of cellular, as contrasted with fibro-vascular tissue. =Fission of axile organs.=--This condition is scarcely to be distinguished from multiplication of the axile organs (which see). A little attention, however, will generally show whether the unusual number of branches is a consequence of the development of a large number of distinct shoots, as happens, for instance, when a tree is pollarded, or of a division of one. M. Fournier[68] gives as an illustration the case of a specimen of _Ruscus aculeatus_ in which there occurred a division of the foliaceous branches into two segments, reaching as far as the insertion of the flower, but no further. He also mentions lateral cleavage effected by a notching of the margin, the notch being anterior to the flowers and always directed towards their insertion. In the allied genus _Danae_, Webb, 'Phyt. Canar.,' p. 320, describes the fascicles of flowers as in "crenulis brevibus ad marginem ramulorum dispositis." Sometimes, on the other hand, _Danae_ has a fascicle of flowers inserted on the middle of the upper surface, as in _Ruscus_. Wigand mentions an instance in _Digitalis lutea_, where the upper part of the stem was divided into six or seven racemes; possibly this was a case of fasciation, but such a division of the inflorescence is by no means uncommon in the spicate species of _Veronica_. I have also seen it in _Plantago lanceolata_, _Reseda luteola_, _Campanula medium_, _Epacris impressa_, and a bifurcation of the axis of the spikelet within the outer glumes in _Lolium perenne_[69] and _Anthoxanthum odoratum_. In the Kew Museum is preserved a cone of _Abies excelsa_,[70] dividing into two divisions, each bearing bracts and scales. A similar thing frequently occurs in the male catkins of _Cedrus Libani_ (fig. 25). [Illustration: FIG. 25.--Bifurcated male inflorescence, _Cedrus Libani_.]