Contribution à la tératologie des Chèvrefeuilles et au problème des fusions. III. Association de cymules biflores par gamophyllie ontogénique

Abstract

In this paper, the authors describe the main features of more than 100 teratological samples spontaneously produced, during the past 5 years, by the hybrid No. 6488-37 of the Montreal Botanical Garden's collection of honeysuckles. The unusual appearance of all these specimens is due to the union, by gamophylly, of flowering twigs, which are most often inserted in foliar axils vertically separated by a well-developed internode.The constant position of the united flowering twigs' insertion point on the main axis of all these samples, the normal or subnormal morphological and anatomical structure of those twigs, and the very small junction area (maximum length 500 μm) of their fused leaves, as also the relative initial position, and (or) the time interval between the respective periods of initiation of the united organs, indicate (1) that these gamophyllies undoubtedly have an ontogenetic or postgenital origin and (2) that the adhesion of the fused foliar areas must have occurred during the intensive intercalary growth of the flowering branches.The histocytological study of areas of gamophylly of the samples shows also that the intimate fusion of the leaves' parts, accidentally brought together, is generally accompanied by a local cellular dedifferentiation and an intensive cell proliferation. The first of these phenomena would correspond in a way to a contact allergy, whereas the second would result from injuries.