the witches' brooms
(hexenbesen) of the German forests; in other instances, it is a result
of mutilation as after the operation of pollarding.

Moquin-Tandon[380] mentions a case in a grafted ash in the botanic
garden of Toulouse, where below the graft there was a large swelling,
from which proceeded more than a thousand densely-packed, interlacing
branches.

This must have been similar to the condition so commonly met with in the
birch, and frequently in the hornbeam and the thorn, and which has
prompted so many a schoolboy to climb the tree in quest of the apparent
nest. It is probable that some of the large "gnaurs" or "burrs," met
with in elms, &c., also in certain varieties of apples, are clusters of
adventitious buds, some of which might, and sometimes do, lengthen out
into branches.

An increased number of branches also necessarily arises when the
flower-buds are replaced by leaf-buds.

[Illustration: FIG. 179.--Flower stalks of _Bellevalia comosa_, nat.
size, after Morren.]

Occasionally, a great increase in the number of pedicels, or
flower-stalks, may be met with in conjunction with a decreased number
of flowers, as in the wig-plant (_Rhus Cotinus_), or the
feather-hyacinth (_Bellevalia comosa_). In these cases the supernumerary
pedicels are often brightly coloured. To this condition Morren gave the
name mischomany, from [Greek: mischos], a pedicel, a term which has not
generally been adopted.[381]

[Illustration: FIG. 180.--Tuft of branches at the end of the
inflorescence of _Bellevalia comosa_, enlarged after Morren.]

M. Fournier[382] describes a case in the butcher's broom (_Ruscus
aculeatus_), wherein from the axil of the minute leaf subtending the
flower a secondary flattened branch proceeded.

Duchartre[383] cites the case of a hyacinth which, in addition to the
usual scape, had a second smaller one by its side terminated by a
solitary flower; indeed, such an occurrence is not uncommon.

Some tulips occasionally present three or four, or more, flowers on one
inflorescence, but whether from a branching of the primary scape, or
from the premature development of some of the axillary bulbils into
flowering stems which become adherent to the primary flower-stalk,
cannot, in all cases, be determined. Certainly, in some cases examined
by me the latter was the case.[384]

Under this head, too, may be included those cases wherein an ordinarily
spicate inflorescence becomes paniculate owing to the b