  We have investigated hole transport in one-dimensional quantum wires in
strained germanium two-dimensional layers. The ballistic conductance
characteristics show the regular quantised plateaux in units of n2e2/h, where n
is an integer. Additionally, new quantised levels are formed which correspond
to values of n = 1/4 reducing to 1/8 in the presence of a strong parallel
magnetic field which lifts the spin degeneracy but does not quantise the
wavefunction. A further plateau is observed corresponding to n = 1/32 which
does not change in the presence of a parallel magnetic field. These values
indicate that the system is behaving as if charge was fractionalised with
values e/2 and e/4, possible mechanisms are discussed.
