RE: Exactly Identical Genes

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Just as I had suspected (except I didn’t expect the picture of the Siamese seed!)  It’s too bad we can’t set up an internal ‘Pumpkin Cam’ to try and get the process on film and see how the seeds develop and how prevalent this phenomenon is.  Thanks for the info & picture Vince.

-Gus

-----Original Message-----
From: vince [mailto:anaid_tecuod@yahoo.com]
Sent: Saturday, November 24, 2001 1:18 PM
To: pumpkins@mallorn.com
Subject: Re: Exactly Identical Genes

------ "Smithhisler, Paul" <Paul.Smithhisler@dnr.state.oh.us> wrote:
> Here's a question for you... do seeds ever split into > identical twins?  Is this even possible?
 

I don't know the answer to this but a week ago I would have said probably not.  Now I'm quite sure I really don't know.  When I was cleaning the seeds out of my 831 yesterday, I found two individual seeds wrapped in a single transparent shell casing.  They looked like twin seeds that had formed in a single womb.  Since identical twins develop from a single fertilized egg, why shouldn't the same mechanism exist in plants?

I really don't know why not.  These two seeds were hanging from a single thread - like they were sharing an umbilical cord.  Below is a fuzzy picture of them.

Like two peas in a pod - identical twin seeds??

It is not very visible in this picture but these two seeds share the transparent casing  that is usually shrink wrapped around each individual seed.

I may try planting these two seeds.... just to find out.

vince