Plant Species of the Borrego Desert: Fasciated Plants

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Fasciated Chylismia claviformis, brown-eyed evening primrose, from Karina Bezkrovnaia-Vertelezka's post in Anza-Borrego Desert Wonders. Note that the buds are above the flowers in the fasciated plant, but in the normal plant to the right the buds are nodding below the flowers. Normal Chylismia claviformis, brown-eyed evening primrose, by Rebecca Lau
Fig. 1. An example of a fasciated plant compared to a normal plant. Click on the pictures for larger versions.

For reasons that are not well understood, very infrequently a plant of many different species will suddenly go "two dimensional", with the main body of the plant flattish and often thickened, and thus looks very different from its usual three dimensional appearance. When stems are fasciated, they often bend, twist, and/or wander in ways that the stem of a normal plant never does.

Flowers can also be fasciated, appearing elongated in one direction, as in this example of Monoptilon bellioides also shown below. This is probably different from "flower head doubling and merging", which sometimes happen in Asteraceae, but I am not 100% sure that it is fundamentally different. The doubled flower heads don't appear to be two dimensional except in having the two heads in a line. In "flower head doubling", both heads often preserve the phyllaries around each, allowing the heads to be split apart and then look like normal flowering heads. See the middle picture in this example for Geraea canescens.

Fasciation typically happens just to a single stem of a plant, at what seems like a random point along the stem. Once the stem becomes fasciated, the growth on that stem usually becomes distorted, often with very dense growth in places.

Fasciated plants never cease to be a source of wonder and puzzlement. Such oddities are sought out for some plant species such as cacti, where what they call "crested" forms are much more valuable than normal forms. This is the best proof that we don't understand what creates fasciated plants, since if we did, and it were something as simple as infection by a virus, plant breeders would use that understanding to produce zillions of specimens of fasciated cactus et al for sale.

The purpose of this page is to show examples of the fasciated forms that people have found in the Borrego Desert, and to begin to tally up how often fasciated specimens are found for each species.

The species shown in this page are indexed below, arranged by lifeform, with the name linked to picture of both a fasciated plant and a normal plant.

See also iNat Fascinating Fasciation project.

Annuals

Cacti

Shrubs

Annuals

Fasciated Acmispon glaber, deerweed, by "velodrome". Normal Acmispon glaber brevialatus, deerweed, by Tom Chester.
Fasciated Aphyllon cooperi, desert broomrape, by Tom Chester. Normal Aphyllon cooperi, desert broomrape, by Tom Chester.
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Fasciated Chylismia claviformis, brown-eyed evening primrose, from Karina Bezkrovnaia-Vertelezka's post in Anza-Borrego Desert Wonders. Note that the buds are above the flowers in the fasciated plant, but in the normal plant to the right the buds are nodding below the flowers. Normal Chylismia claviformis, brown-eyed evening primrose, by Rebecca Lau
Fasciated Eulobus californicus, California suncup, by Fred Melgert / Carla Hoegen. Normal Eulobus californicus, California suncup, by "shrike2".
Fasciated Monoptilon bellioides, desert star, by Becky Escalante Normal Monoptilon bellioides, desert star, by Don Rideout
Fasciated Oenothera deltoides, dune evening primrose, by "kbarnett". Normal Oenothera deltoides, dune evening primrose, by Tom Chester.
Fig. 2. Fasciated annual plants along with examples of normal plants. Click on the pictures for larger versions in most cases.

Cacti

Fasciated Cylindropuntia echinocarpa, silver cholla, by "hsug1747" Normal Cylindropuntia echinocarpa, silver cholla, by Tom Chester.
Fasciated Echinocereus engelmannii, Engelmann's hedgehog cactus, by Tom Chester. Normal Echinocereus engelmannii, Engelmann's hedgehog cactus, by Tom Chester.
Fasciated Ferocactus cylindraceus, California barrel cactus, by Dave Swanson. Normal Ferocactus cylindraceus, California barrel cactus, by Tom Chester.
Fasciated Mammillaria dioica, California fish-hook cactus, by Tom Chester. This same plant had one fasciated stem and one normal stem. Normal Mammillaria dioica, California fish-hook cactus, by Nancy Accola. This same plant had one fasciated stem and one normal stem.
Fasciated Mammillaria dioica, California fish-hook cactus, by Tom Chester. Fasciated Mammillaria dioica, California fish-hook cactus, by Tom Chester.
Fig. 3. Fasciated cacti plants along with examples of normal plants. Click on the pictures for larger versions in most cases.

Shrubs

Fasciated Lycium andersonii, Anderson's boxthorn, by Tom Chester. Normal Lycium andersonii, Anderson's boxthorn, by Tom Chester.
Fig. 4. Fasciated shrub plants along with examples of normal plants. Click on the pictures for larger versions in most cases.

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Copyright © 2023 by Tom Chester.
Commercial rights reserved. Permission is granted to reproduce any or all of this page for individual or non-profit institutional internal use as long as credit is given to me at this source:
http://tchester.org/bd/species/fasciated_plants.html
Comments and feedback: Tom Chester
Updated 24 April 2023.