  We develop some theory of spinal decompositions of discrete and continuous
fragmentation trees. Specifically, we consider a coarse and a fine spinal
integer partition derived from spinal tree decompositions. We prove that for a
two-parameter Poisson--Dirichlet family of continuous fragmentation trees,
including the stable trees of Duquesne and Le Gall, the fine partition is
obtained from the coarse one by shattering each of its parts independently,
according to the same law. As a second application of spinal decompositions, we
prove that among the continuous fragmentation trees, stable trees are the only
ones whose distribution is invariant under uniform re-rooting.
