It sure is an odd condition

But lovely.

Beautiful color!

Rather than fasciation, that is a fused bloom. If you look at the back, I think you'll find it looks something like this

Never heard that term. Thanks for educating us once again!

I am not sure where the definition of fasciation begins or ends. I once had a fused flower like that (2 flowers fused into 1) circa 1975. It was cause by an inadvertent overspray of Round Up, enough that I knew it happened when I was spraying. I literally ran to get a watering can to wash as much as possible off (the water hose didn't reach), and that was the result.

Really, we are only talking semantics here. I can't see the necessary parts in Anthony's flower, but in my opinion, Moby, you have a fused flower caused by fasciation. As your diagnostic photo points out, the anomaly begins in the stem, not the flower or the flower stem. (The flower stem (peduncle) begins at the last leaf before the flower.) So the fused flower was caused by the fasciation that was the determinant, as technically and botanically speaking, a flower does not actually begin inside a stem.

Dont fasciated plants have large wide flat stems and multiple buds and blooms?
I had a fasciated FataMorgana with 30 buds on it plus the stem was 2 inches wide.

Geez, Joann-- That stem looks almost dangerous, like it wants to reach out and grab you. What a husky example of stem fasciation! A fine referrence photo for the books.

Actually, when it comes to flower fasciation, I see it most offen on young seedlings flowering for the first time, and then moreso when only one bud is produced as in the example below. This one from this past Summer. Altho, I don't have a picture, this flower had smaller, twisted double petals on the inside.

I had a Landini lily fasciate last summer.It was also stunted.

Maybe all the Bulb Tone we use, Jo Ann. Maybe that's it.

Moby--in my pink example, would you say that's more of a 'fused bloom' than fasciation, even with the distorted doublling on the inside?

I may have experienced more than most, but I'm certainly no expert. As Lefty mentioned, where does fasciation begin or end? Perhaps a fused bloom is the most minor example of fasciation. Whether fasciation presents itself in subtle or striking ways, I think it's important to remember that there isn't anything pathological here, just nature's little quirks for the observant.

How a fused bloom differs from a poly is that the poly has extra parts and the fused has double everything and is otherwise normally formed ~ style, filaments, anthers, etc. Lorn, yours looks like it is fused but didn't quite have the 'oomph' to separate enough to make it obvious.

Jo Ann ~ your Fata Morgana is the most easily recognizable form called ribbon fasciation, but it does show up in other ways, seen here toward the bottom http://garden.org/thread/view_...

So here we are at the end of 2012 with last winter's warmth, long Spring and brutally hot Summer and I, Moby, Queen of Fasciation (thanks Lefty) had no fasciations. None. Nada. ZIP! I guess it must be the 'stop and grow' weather we usually get here in the middle of the country.

Thanks for the link. a good refresher on the subject at this time. I've always viewed significant fasciation as something less than desirable and when it happened to a plant I'm tracking, I wish it never would have--meaning as far as I'm concerned, a years worth of waiting for results, data to be collected, etc. is lost. Still, I have to appreciate fasciation for what it is,and to ponder the many influences that cause it. Most of which we can not control (?)

That certainly could be a discriminating factor to a breeder / grower, such as yourself.
There seems to be some that tend toward fasciation on a somewhat regular basis. I have a few LA's that will put out a stem that is essentially round, but ridged in circumference, that I wonder if they aren't fasciated. They have more blooms than the rest and stem isn't disfigured to the casual observer.

Moby: That is really the most extreme example I have ever seen.
Lorn: How disappointing to have to wait another season.

You all made me take a 2nd look at 'Temma'...No obvious fasciation in the stem, but a fraction of wideness just before the flower..A coloured petal has developed just before the flower on the pedicel--

A phenomenon to be sure

That Temma is amazing! What a beautiful abberation.

Stunning color, too. Very rich.

it's difficult to rule anything completely out when no one knows the cause of fasciation. I wouldn't even go as far as to make a binding statement that it is non-pathological (not cause by a living organism), although I would say the odds are extremely minimal. Nature is incredibly diverse in all its forms (including diseases).

I could see a virus, mycoplasma, or whatever being triggered into action by some external impetus. What makes us get cancer, why can it go into and out of remission, what makes someone who had chicken pox decades ago suddenly get shingles... or never get shingle, for examples.

That certain individual plants seem prone to fasciation would tend to support a pathology, or tend to not support a pathology, depending on how you look at it.

Uh... yeah. The comment about pathology (or the lack thereof) was for a person who might come upon such sight, that they wouldn't get too worried and pull it out thinking it was diseased.