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Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Random plant event: mutant Platycodon?

Not only does this Platycodon flower have three more petals than usual, but it's tagged Platycodon 'Fuji White' besides. The tag could be a mistake (tags do get switched around, and dropped, and so forth), but the petal thing is absolutely the plant's own idea.


I've seen a couple plants try for ten petals, here and there, though that's less surprising. I already knew that sometimes plants double their petal count (usually because they've doubled chromosome number). But this is different.

Actually, do these even count as petals, exactly? I mean, they're all fused together, right? So is it normally five petals, or one really big petal? Is there a botanist in the house?
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4 comments:

  1. GinAugust 5, 2008 at 5:51 AM

    Not a botanist, but check out what one o' mine did earlier this spring:

    http://flickr.com/photos/fuzzyprint/2649231394

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  2. Benjamin VogtAugust 5, 2008 at 3:45 PM

    Pretty cool in a plutonium kind of way regardless.

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  3. JaredAugust 6, 2008 at 5:38 AM

    At least you're not seeing St. Therese in the fused petals . . . or are you?

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  4. Annie in AustinAugust 6, 2008 at 1:44 PM

    Hello Mr Subjunctive,

    I came to see the Dreamlines images but this is also intriguing.
    Since double Balloon Flowers have two offset layers of five petals, do you think this Platycodon had the original intention of being a double but it didn't quite go the distance?

    Annie at the Transplantable Rose

    ReplyDelete