RE: Twinspot Spotted!

Bill-
 
I had this happen on one of my gold
seedlings this year.  It's the one that
eventually flushed with red.  Unfortunatley
the red was just a signal of a bloom
scape a commin'.  It's a really cute 
plant though.
 
One of the leaves had a green streak 
down the center vein, next to it was a 
white streak.  Looked soooo cool. it's
still there but none of the other leaves
picked it up.  I guess I'll have to see
if it comes back next year.  I was 
consdering plucking that leaf and 
scanning it to show but didn't want
to affet the plant.
 
Mike
Milwaukee

-----Original Message-----
From: Bill Meyer [n*@hotmail.com]
Sent: Monday, August 26, 2002 1:35 PM
To: hosta-open@hort.net
Subject: Twinspot Spotted!



Hi Everyone,
        One of the rarest phenomena in the hosta world is the
"twinspot". Generally accepted as the classical proof of mitotic
recombination occuring, it is the result (in a gold plant) of a single
gold cell dividing into a green cell and a white one, and those two
forming adjacent and parallel lines of tissue in those two colors. These
are as rare as hen's teeth (almost) in hostas, and this is the only one
I've seen this year. Fortunately Carol Brashear was there with her
trusty camera to make it the best-looking "twinspot" photo ever taken.
It's on a gold seedling at Roy Herold's new garden in Massachusetts. 
        This is the fourth one I've seen so far, and I've looked at an
awful lot of hosta. It is truly a more-than-one-in-a-million occurrence.
All the ones I've seen so far, and the one in Gary Trucks' photo have
been in the center area of the leaf, and have not extended all the way
to the edge of the leaf, meaning they did not cross the L1-L2 border.
Has anyone else seen, or better yet managed to get a photo of one of
these? Has anyone seen one occur in the margin area of a leaf? If you
have had one of these where you could watch it, did it reappear (both
colors or just one?) the following year? 
         There is so much we don't know about rare phenomena like this,
and all of us can help the cause of hosta science move along if we can
provide evidence of unusual events in the plants we see. Please snap a
picture of truly odd sports or mutations if you see them, and keep track
of those plants to see if they do the same thing next year. You can make
a difference in advancing our knowledge about the genus. 
 
........Bill Meyer

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