# Found a freak of nature



## bugmankeith (Jul 2, 2011)

An Albino sunflower seedling. It died after a few days and last one I found was two years ago so pretty rare to have a seed that isnt eaten by the birds, and sucessfully sprouts.


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## Crysta (Jul 2, 2011)

lol.... you gave it its own facebook? 
http://www.facebook.com/pages/I-bet...dling-can-get-over-10000-fans/102086103167950


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## bugmankeith (Jul 2, 2011)

Crysta said:


> lol.... you gave it its own facebook?
> http://www.facebook.com/pages/I-bet...dling-can-get-over-10000-fans/102086103167950


Yeah, got 23 fans, some people liked it LOL.


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## bugmankeith (Aug 11, 2011)

Anyone else care to look?


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## DannyH (Aug 12, 2011)

Psh im liking it.


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## John Apple (Aug 12, 2011)

that would be called the alba form


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## pavel (Aug 12, 2011)

A lethal mutation


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## catfishrod69 (Aug 12, 2011)

i recently was driving down the interstate, and saw a single sunflower plant with a pretty flower about 2-3 foot tall...


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## BrettG (Aug 12, 2011)

catfishrod69 said:


> i recently was driving down the interstate, and saw a single sunflower plant with a pretty flower about 2-3 foot tall...


Riveting.
j/k dude.
MMMMMMM sunflower seeds.On a sidenote,are sunflowers pretty easy to grow?Always wanted to try my hand at it for the seeds.


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## catfishrod69 (Aug 12, 2011)

dude sunflowers are super easy to grow... iused to grow ones that were over 10 feet tall with 2 feet wide flowers...



BrettG said:


> Riveting.
> j/k dude.
> MMMMMMM sunflower seeds.On a sidenote,are sunflowers pretty easy to grow?Always wanted to try my hand at it for the seeds.


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## JC (Aug 13, 2011)

pavel said:


> A lethal mutation



Isn't it funny that what we consider a 'healthy green' in plants are actually just a evolutive reflection of the very light frequencies that these lifeforms are attempting to avoid?

Reactions: Like 1


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## pavel (Aug 13, 2011)

catfishrod69 said:


> dude sunflowers are super easy to grow... .


I agree.  Every year at my folks' place all sorts of sunflowers sprout up.  Some around the bird feeders, others elsewhere from squirrels burying them.  Folks gave up growing them for the flowers, though.  Think they got to enjoy an actual flower only once or twice -- as soon as the flowers would start to open, a tree rat (squirrel) would bite the flowerhead off and run away with it.  There was a somewhat comedic factor to seeing a squirrel bounding across the lawn with a flower in its mouth. 
 


JC said:


> Isn't it funny that what we consider a 'healthy green' in plants are actually just a evolutive reflection of the very light frequencies that these lifeforms are attempting to avoid?


In this case, JC this isn't merely a matter of "consideration" nor is it a matter of avoiding certain light frequencies.  With the exception of plants which are saprophytes (or are more accurately "myco-heterophytes") and some of the parasitic plants, it is truly a lethal mutation. 

*NOTE: For those who really couldn't care less about the biology behind plant leaf color, skip the rest of my post.

Plants are not green because they are attempting to "avoid" the green wavelengths of light, though you are quite correct that green plants appear so because they are reflecting primarily the green wavelengths.  Rather plants are green as a matter of efficiency.  While sunlight does contain the full spectrum of colors, the sunlight that reaches the leaves is primarily a mix of blue and red.  Therefore it is more efficient to be green so the plant can make maximum use of the blue and red wavelengths.

Having said this, most plants DO make some use of green light as well.  Chloroplasts contain different color pigments.  This is predominantly chlorophyll, which is green, in most plants.  However, even green plants typically have other pigments as well -- such as carotenes (reds, oranges, & yellows) and anthocyanin (reds, purples, blues, & magentas) to name a couple.  These pigments allow the plant in question to absorb green light and other colors not the same as itself.  Plants containing these other pigments usually are still green because they contain more chlorophyll than the other pigments.  (For example, a liter of green paint will still appear green even after a few drops of red are mixed in.)  For those of us living in temperate regions, this is easily seen in autumn.  As autumn progresses, the chlorophyll in the leaves of deciduous trees is broken down into simpler substances.  As this happens, leaves lose their green color and what we see instead are the colors of the other pigments the leaves contain.  

Plants which are albino lack chlorophyll and usually most of the other pigments as well.  Because of this deficit, they are unable to manufacture the necessary carbohydrates via photosynthesis to survive and typically die while still seedlings.   Therefore, for such plants being albino is a lethal mutation.

Apologies if I bored the crap out of all of you.

Reactions: Like 1


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## JC (Aug 13, 2011)

Yes you are correct. Worded wrong in my part, had application in mind.

And for those that did not feel like reading pavel's very correct post.

In a nutshell: Color shown = light color not absorbed, thus reflected.(generally)


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## catfishrod69 (Aug 13, 2011)

yeah sunflowers are pretty easy...heck take a bag of mixed bird seed out and toss it around in some grass, or dont mow around a birdfeeder, youll get all kinda cool things like the sunflowers and spray millet..


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## deathkorps (Aug 22, 2011)

my sister in law grew some sunflowers this year and shes didn't have to do much with them to get them going. all she really did was keep em watered, and a few of them almost got to the bottom of her porch roof!


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## Louise E. Rothstein (Oct 11, 2011)

Plant grafting can save scions that have no chlorophyll.
The "saviour" grafts that we most often see are the mutant "cactus balls" whose flowerlike colors only survive because they have been grafted onto green cacti:
their lack of chlorophyll is lethal if they try to survive by themselves.

Other deficient plants might survive if they were grafted onto green plants of sufficiently similar species.

A fairly "high" graft would be required,however,since the host plant would need to keep enough green leaves to feed both itself and its acquisition...I wonder 
whether an engrafted albino sunflower would produce flowers with white centers...?

Or would the cells intermingle (as a surprising number of my grafts have) and produce botanical chimeras...?

And what would they look like?


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## Drakk (Oct 11, 2011)

Not a clue...but REALLY interesting stuff.
My plant newb question is.....what happens with a chimeras seeds are they just the host plants or just the cuttings or hybrid?


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## pavel (Oct 12, 2011)

Louise E. Rothstein said:


> I wonder whether an engrafted albino sunflower would produce flowers with white centers...?
> 
> Or would the cells intermingle (as a surprising number of my grafts have) and produce botanical chimeras...?
> 
> And what would they look like?


Louise, I would expect that the flowers of the scion would be completely white -- without any accessorie pigments produced at all even for the petals of the sunflower.  (If sunflower albinism is a simple recessive trait.) I do agree with you that it would be interesting to find out.  (For those unfamiliar with grafting, the stock is (usually) the stronger/more vigorous plant that will be responsible for supporting the life of the plant being grafted onto the stock.  The plant grafted onto the stock is called the "scion".)

I would not expect cell mingling within the scion proper.  However, at the juncture of the stock - scion graft I suspect chimerism would probably be far more likely.  As such, I wouldn't be surprised if any resulting chimera would present itself as varigated growth.  Just how varigated would depend on how "intermixed" the cells of both stock and scion became.



Drakk said:


> My plant newb question is.....what happens with a chimeras seeds are they just the host plants or just the cuttings or hybrid?


Drakk, none of the seeds would be chimeras in and of themselves.  Think of each seed as starting as a single ovum (egg).  Just as it is in animals, each ovum is a single cell.  When this egg is fertilized it develops into a seed.  To simplify this somewhat, let's assume only the one "flower" is available so any pollination occurs with itself.  In addition, for the sake of simplicity, assume that albinism in sunflowers is due to being homozygous for a single recessive gene.

Before proceeding further, it needs to be understood that what we term a "sunflower" is not a _SINGLE _flower.  Each sunflower is a composite flower made up of a multitude of individual little flowers (florets).  Each petal is actually a single sterile floret.  The rest of the florets are fertile and each has both female and male parts.

So now what are the options for the progeny of our hypothetical chimera?

1)  All of the cells involved in floret formation are from the stock plant.  In this instance, all offspring will only belong to the stock plant.

2)  All of the cells involved in floret formation are from the scion plant.  In this instance, all offspring will only be of the scion's lineage.  All of the offspring will have the lethal mutation of albinism.  Unless they can be grafted to normal green plants or be artificially provided with the necessary carbohydrates they will all die.

3)  The cells which give rise to the florets are a mix of both the stock and scion plants.  Here's where things get more complicated.  

If the ovum and pollen which fertilizes it originate from the scion, all offspring will be only that of the scion.  They will all have the lethal mutation of albinism.  
If the ovum and pollen which fertilizes it originate from the stock, all offspring will be only that of the stock.  Whether any of the offspring are albino will depend on whether the stock plant is heterozygous for albinism and if so which sets of chromosomes are present in the zygote.  If the stock plant is het for albinism, then there is probability that 25% of the offspring will be albino.  If the stock is not het for albinism, all offspring will appear normal barring mutations.
If the ovum originates from the scion and the pollen from the stock (or vice versa), all offspring will be hybrids of the stock and the scion.  Assuming the stock plant is het for albinism, the probability would be that 50% of the offspring would be albino.  If the stock is not het for albinism, all offspring will appear normal.

In no case will any of the offspring be chimeras for none of them will have cells originating from two different origins.  Chimeras are propagated via divisions of chimeric plants.  Leaf cutting propagation almost never produces chimeric offsets.  Additionally, it is possible for a chimeric plant to revert back to one of the "parents".  This typically happens as a result of one of the groups of cells dies out or ceases to reproduce while the other group continues to proliferate.


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## Toirtis (Oct 13, 2011)

BrettG said:


> On a sidenote,are sunflowers pretty easy to grow?


As many others have stated, very easy. In my neighbourhood, there are hundreds of homes that grow them in quantity, and the local community association has had 'giant sunflower' contests in past years for tallest plants and largest flowerheads....one of my neighbours produced several plants two years ago that were over 20' tall (and you can easily see tons of plants that are in the 10'-16' range around here), and I have seen many flowerheads that were easily 24"-26" across.


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## bugmankeith (Oct 23, 2011)

Finding one like mine is rare, only way it would have survived is if I grafted it onto a healthy green plant. Wonder if the flower would have been white?


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## Tarantel (Oct 24, 2011)

I liked this.


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## Louise E. Rothstein (Nov 10, 2011)

The cells that chimeracised the original specimens may also enter developing seeds.
If they do so,the seedlings become chimeras themselves-and the adult chimeras appear to breed true.

Hybrids turn up less often.
As far as I know,mine only occurred when my chimeracised Impatiens plants produced two kinds of pollen-and cross-fertilized their species eggcells. 

And then some HYBRIDS turned out to be CHIMERAS...as well as being hybridized.

Chimera seeds do sprout some surprises.


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