Abstract
THE development of stamens in pistillate plants of Melandrium under the influence of Ustilago violacea (Pers.) Fuckel is well known. Recently, this action has been simulated by treatment of plants with the animal hormone testosterone, while the reverse change has been caused by cestrone1,2. None of the authors responsible for accounts of the reversal, whether natural or artificial, has remarked upon the fact that, when such a change from the pistillate to the staminate condition occurs, some characters of pistillate plants are replaced by those typical of staminate plants while others are not. Thus, the copious branching and diminution in size of the leaves which is produced in the region of the inflorescence, and the grouping of the flowers into more or less sessile clusters, all of which are characteristics of staminate plants, appear after infection. On the other hand, the calyx retains the inflated shape characteristic of pistillate plants and, although infection of originally pistillate and staminate plants reduces the length of the calyx-teeth, they retain the characteristic difference in shape, and those of the pistillate plants remain the longer. These characters are seen best in M. album, where the differences between pistillate and staminate plants are more extreme.
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BAKER, H. Sex in Melandrium. Nature 159, 34 (1947). https://doi.org/10.1038/159034a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/159034a0
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