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Dahlia Cafe au lait royal - how clever is nature, bet I won’t get another one of these!

13

Posts

  • k.e.rk.e.r Posts: 8
    Somebody forgot to stir! :D
    Very good!! 🤣
  • fidgetbonesfidgetbones Posts: 17,618
    edited October 2022
  • bédébédé Posts: 3,095
    edited October 2022
    For the technically interested. Others can jump this post.

    Last night I thought about the Dahlia chimera.  What you might call a "thought experiment"

    Each inflorecence bud started  from a single cell.  That doubled, then doubled again.  In the second doubling a mutation/reversion occured in one cell. This left 3 original cell types and one mutated.  From then on this status continued.  This explains the almost exact 90º angle of the segment, ie. 1/4 of a circle.

    I then thought of  propagating from seed-culture  rather than tissue-culture (hypotheically of course).

    The rub is:  Dahlia are Daisy family (Asteracea/Compositae).  They have both ray flowers and disk flowers.  Only the disk flowers are fertile. We only have evidence that the ray flowers have been affected, so taking seeds from the disk would prove nothing.

    There is as much wonder in science as there is in just wondering.


     location: Surrey Hills, England, ex-woodland acidic sand.
    "Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
  • punkdocpunkdoc Posts: 15,039
    Some really muddled thinking there.
    It is highly unlikely that any seeds would contain the mutation.
    I think wondering at the sheer beauty, is a far better option.
    How can you lie there and think of England
    When you don't even know who's in the team

    S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border
  • bédébédé Posts: 3,095
    punkdoc said:  Some really muddled thinking 
    That is not construtive.  Point out the muddling; I can always learn.
     location: Surrey Hills, England, ex-woodland acidic sand.
    "Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
  • punkdocpunkdoc Posts: 15,039
    The mutation occurs in a gene responsible for flower colour, in one particular flower. it is not passed onto the seed. If it was it would be easy to repeat this colouration, which might well be considered desirable by breeders, however it is not possible and these mutations remain a chance occurence.
    How can you lie there and think of England
    When you don't even know who's in the team

    S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border
  • punkdocpunkdoc Posts: 15,039
    Half of that cat looks evil, the other rather sweet.
    How can you lie there and think of England
    When you don't even know who's in the team

    S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border
  • k.e.rk.e.r Posts: 8
    It wasn’t a one off…. I have another and it’s the opposite of the first!! Same plant, some flowers cream, some pink, a couple a mixture

  • SYinUSASYinUSA Posts: 243
    I'm sure it's an entirely different mechanism, but I used to have a very old camellia bush that would have 3 different flower colors on the same stem. One was an almost-white pale pink, one was pink with dark pink stripes, and one was solid dark pink. 
  • I have a bud on one called Innocent Silence that is quartered in a similar way, but will be surprised if it makes it to full flowering now!
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