Fascicle (botany)

In botany, a fascicle (also called a short shoot when that is morphologically appropriate) is a bundle of leaves or flowers growing crowded together; alternatively the term might refer to the vascular tissues that supply such an organ with nutrients. However, vascular tissues may occur in fascicles even when the organs they supply are not fascicled. In zoology and animal anatomy the term fascicle refers to a small bundle, usually of fibres, nerves, or vessels.

Etymology of fascicle and related terms

The term fascicle and its derived terms such as fasciculation are from the Latin fasciculus, the diminutive of fascis, a bundle. Accordingly such words occur in many forms and contexts wherever they are convenient for descriptive purposes. A fascicle may indeed be leaves or flowers on a "short shoot" where the nodes of a shoot are crowded without clear internodes, such as in species of Pinus or Rhigozum. However, bundled fibres, nerves or bristles as in tissues or the glochid fascicles of Opuntia may have little or nothing to do with branch morphology.

Fascicle

A fascicle is a bundle or a cluster. The Latin term fasciculus (plural fasciculi) may also be used with the same meanings.

Fascicle or fasciculus may refer to:

Anatomy

Botany

Other uses

Serial (literature)

In literature, a serial is a printed format by which a single larger work, often a work of narrative fiction, is published in sequential installments. The installments are also known as numbers, parts or fascicles, and are either issued as separate publications or within in sequential issues of the same periodical publication.

Early history

The growth of moveable type in the 17th century prompted episodic and often disconnected narratives such as L'Astrée and Le Grand Cyrus. At that time, books remained a premium item, so to reduce the price and expand the market, publishers produced large works in lower-cost installments called fascicles.

19th century including early 1900s

Serialized fiction surged in popularity during Britain's Victorian era, due to a combination of the rise of literacy, technological advances in printing, and improved economics of distribution. A significant majority of "original" novels from the Victorian era actually first appeared in either monthly or weekly installments in magazines or newspapers. The wild success of Charles Dickens' The Pickwick Papers, first published in 1836, is widely considered to have established the viability and appeal of the serialized format within periodical literature. During that era, the line between "quality" and "commercial" literature was not distinct. In the German-speaking countries, the serialized novel was widely popularized by the weekly family magazine Die Gartenlaube, which reached a circulation of 382,000 by 1875.

Muscle fascicle

In anatomy, a muscle fascicle is a bundle of skeletal muscle fibers surrounded by perimysium, a type of connective tissue. (There is also a nerve fascicle of axons.)

Specialized muscle fibers in the heart that transmit electrical impulses from the atrioventricular node (AV Node) to the Purkinje fibers are fascicles, also referred to as bundle branches. These start as a single fascicle of fibers at the AV node called the bundle of His that then splits into three bundle branches: the right fascicular branch, left anterior fascicular branch, and left posterior fascicular branch.

See also

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