Re: Chirality

Dear Ted,

Aloha.

I agree with Kathy.  It is very interesting indeed.  My favorite spiraling in Araceae are the coiled spadixes of Anthurium wendlingeri.  However, I was not observant enough to notice the chirality, sinistral(left) or dextral (right).  Can they have both on the same plant?  List?  I have no idea about  molecular geometry and its influence on the chirality of Anthurium wendlingeri, nor evolutionary advantage to direction of coil.  We should have Christopher comment on this...

Aloha,

Leland
From: Kathy <ku5@yahoo.com>
To: Discussion of aroids <aroid-l@www.gizmoworks.com>
Sent: Tuesday, October 25, 2011 4:58 PM
Subject: Re: [Aroid-l] Chirality

About "handedness" with aroids, Ted: when the spathe of Amorph titanum unwraps and opens it's easy to observe this, and all the ones that have flowered for me have been left handed, and all the ones at University of Wisconsin have been right handed. I don't know the reason for this, but it's interesting.

Sent from my iPhone

On Oct 24, 2011, at 12:46 PM, Theodore Held <o*@gmail.com> wrote:

> Dear List,
>
> Attached here (with luck) is a picture I made of a pair of blooms from
> a Cryptocoryne griffithi (identity confirmed by Peter Boyce at the
> recent IAS show). Whatâs interesting to me is that the outer spathe
> tip (called the flag for Crypts) of the plants twists to the left for
> one and to the right for the other. These plants are vegetative kin.
>
> I have also seen the pairing of left-handed and right-handed
> inflorescences on Cryptocoryne pontederifolia.
>
> Has anyone ever noticed mirror-image flower forms like this with any
> other aroids? In chemistry differences involving only mirror images
> are referred to as chiral isomers and originate with subtle
> molecular-level geometry. In normal life this is called âhandedness.â
> In a plant bloom, the differences may display as macroscopic
> phenomena, but likely originate with early development, also perhaps
> on a molecular level.
>
> Please enlighten me if anyone knows about this oddity.
>
> Ted Held.
> <IMG_2017.jpg>
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