r/botany • u/SnooChocolates9625 • 9d ago
Is this rare? Genetics
I was going through a bag of romaine lettuce I had got at the store and found a leaf that seemed to have sprouted two tips and I was wondering if this is common or not?
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u/boebaeda 9d ago
maybe the apical meristem split into 2 as the leaf was growing? I’ve seen this happen with oak leaves a couple times
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u/leafshaker 9d ago
Depends on the variety, i think.
Im a farmer and I process lots of greens, Don't see this too often
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u/sadrice 9d ago
Both yes and no. First I’ve seen it on lettuce, but I’ve seen it in other plants perhaps a few dozen times, citrus and Camellia seem extra prone. But I also spend an unusually large amount of time looking at plants, and while I’ve seen it many times, it’s also not common, and I always do a double take and think it’s neat. Maybe about as common as spontaneous variegation.
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u/Johnyzin 7d ago
Two points that complements one another: first what we see is the leaf of a plant (lettuce) and second, leaves don't usually have stem cells (meristem), lettuce is one of them. The tissue of plants that can differ and become any part of it. I'm pretty sure that this can't be caused by any local damage through growing but in fact is a defect in protein sintesis during mitosis in other words, a mutation. Correct me if im wrong, but for me its very rare.
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u/ChimotheeThalamet 9d ago
If you don't get any answers to this, it's going to romaine a mystery