Abstract
AMONG other effects, gibberellic acid may alter plant-growth correlations by decreasing the inhibitory action of leaves and storage organs. Previous work1–3 has shown that species of Bryophyllum, B. crenatum, B. verticillatum and B. daigremontanum do not flower if kept continually under either long- or short-day conditions. To induce flowering, long-day plants showing long internodes and petiolated oval leaves must be exposed daily for 10 days to 12-hr, illumination or less, whereas short-day plants with their very short internodes and round, almost sessile, leaves must be exposed for 20 days to a long day of 13 hr. or more and then to short-day conditions for a further 10 days. These plants were therefore described as long-short-day plants4. The long-day plants could not be induced to flower by treatment with gibberellic acid. Bünsow and Harder were able to induce elongation and flowering of long-day plants grown under short-day conditions by treatment with gibberellins obtained from the fungus5 and from unripe bean seeds6. The same result was obtained in our laboratory by treatment with gibberellic acid of material of Bryophyllum crenatum which had been maintained in the form of rosettes for 12 years by continuous exposure only to short-day conditions. If, however, after treatment with gibberellic acid these short-day plants were exposed to continuous illumination or to long-day conditions, they failed to form flower primordia although they elongated strongly, forming long internodes and new oval petiolated leaves. Thus gibberellic acid can replace the long-day requirement but not the quite specific flower-inducing effect of the short day. Extremely rarely a single flower appeared in the axil of one of the upper leaves of the rosette plants grown under short-day conditions ; this was only observed in the spring of 1949 in two out of many hundred plants grown in a 9-hr. day.
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DOSTÁL, R. Gibberellic Acid and Growth Correlations. Nature 183, 1338 (1959). https://doi.org/10.1038/1831338a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/1831338a0
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