Information on BX 197

totototo@telus.net totototo@telus.net
Sun, 22 Feb 2009 14:25:42 PST
On 21 Feb 2009, at 19:24, Jim McKenney wrote:

> the presence of stem bulbils in tiger lilies is one of the features of those
> lilies which is hardest to account for – which parental species would have
> provided the genes for stem bulbils? 

There needn't be some genetic doo-dah specific to Lilum tigrinum and its 
parents. It's very common for sterile triploids to resort to vegetative 
propagation. In fact, many commercial clones of bulbs are sterile, selected in 
the wild for their powers of vegetative reproduction and later determined to be 
triploids.

I have Brodiaea howellii here from its only known site on Vancouver Island. It 
multiplies by stolons with bulbs at the ends and hardly ever flowers. The few 
flowers formed never set seed, which suggests triploid sterility. It's become a 
weed, in fact, having spread from a tiny number of very small bulbs to take 
over an area perhaps a meter square.

I've wondered what would happen if treated with colchicine to create a 
hexaploid. Godzilla? King Kong? Mothra?


-- 
Rodger Whitlock
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
Maritime Zone 8, a cool Mediterranean climate
on beautiful Vancouver Island

http://maps.google.ca/maps/…


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