I’m almost ready to blame this freaky mutant on fallout from the Fukushima Daiichi reactor disaster.
On my way to the office, several times a week, I walk past a cultivated patch of Hooker’s evening primrose, Oenothera elata. A few days ago I noticed this mutant crested growth on the central growing point on one of the plants. I’ve noticed this crested growth pattern in the garden a few times, most recently on a euphorbia. But this is the first time I’ve noticed it on a primrose–or any other local native plant for that matter.
In a case of crested growth, the growing tip on a stem, the apical meristem, changes from a single growth point to a growth all along a broad line of cells. As the cells along the line grow, the plant forms a fan-shaped growth instead of a slender stem.
In this second photo you can see a normal stem to the right for comparison: slender normal stem, big fat mutant stem.
And here you can see the crested stem from the side and how it widens as it rises.
Pretty weird, huh?
Freaky! Great shots though. I’ve had this happen most recently on a Euphorbia, I finally had to cut it off because it was kind of grossing me out.
Weird! The poor plant does the best it can under the circumstances, still blooming, look at all theose buds. I had an Artemesia that did that once and it was freakish. Ain’t easy being green sometimes.
Very odd – I’ll pass it on to some plant nerd friends here to see if they’ve heard of such a thing on that species!
Here, some mesquites (only planted, none in the wild) grow some funky seed pods that are totally deformed, with weird insects crawling out of them!!
I have observed this most frequently on “Pride of Madeira” (Echium candicans) where the growth was almost a foot wide. At pruning and cleaning time after bloom (Hazmat gear required) there were several such growths.
Is this what’s also called fasciation? It’s so creepy yet I can’t look away!
i love finding mutants! it’s like the zombie of the plant world… saw a foxglove that was doing the same thing the other day.