Ferocactus oddity

[Shane]

I noticed this F. wislizeni with an extra proto-leaf (if anyone knows the real name please educate me) about a week ago. It's been pretty unchanged since then. I'm wondering if it could be crested (or some other mutation?). This seems to be pretty common with these plants in habitat

Anyway thought it was interesting and wanted to share. Seeing variations like this is a really cool part of growing from seed

[Aloinopsis]

It has an extra cotyledon.

This is relatively common and doesn't usually indicated anything is wrong.

[Shane]

Ah, cotyledon! I knew that...

I guess I'll just have to keep waiting for one of them to crest

[Aloinopsis]

Fasciation is usually (but not always) an abnormal but nonfatal disease state that affects how dicots grow and/or flower. Whether the cause is environmental, genetic, epigenetic, fungal, bacterial, viral, mechanical, or has some other etiology, the fact that it is a problem with growth means it usually shows up on adult plants--if it showed up on a tiny seedling, it would have a difficult time living to adulthood.

In other words plants that suffer "cresting" (fasciation) don't usually show it as seedlings. They have to grow healthy for several years first before they can withstand it.

[esp_imaging]

Seedlings with a third cotyledeon tend to develop normal mature growth. Whatever causes the 3rd cotyledon to develop usually doesn't affect the growing point.

[Shane]

Speaking of extra cotyledons, check out this heptacotyledonous pine seedling. And I thought "tricots" were interesting...

[esp_imaging]

Speaking of extra cotyledons, check out this heptacotyledonous pine seedling. And I thought "tricots" were interesting...

Interesting! I did a bit of googling - apparently conifers normally have multiple cotyledons. And I thought there were basically dicots or monocots...

[Shane]

Interesting! I did a bit of googling - apparently conifers normally have multiple cotyledons. And I thought there were basically dicots or monocots...

I realize now in my excitement I was forgetting quite a bit of plant biology. Angiosperms (flowering plants), have one or two cotyledons. But gymnosperms can have more (2-24 according to the internet). Gymnosperms are plants like conifers, ginkos, cycads and some less known stuff like Welwitschia, Ephedra etc. Flowering plants include everything else but very primitive stuff like moss algae and ferns

Another note, even among flowering plants, there aren't "just" monocots and dicots. There are several different groups of dicots that aren't terribly related to each other. People used to think dicots were all one group but we know that's incorrect now (monocots are still a single group however). Here's a complex plant family tree to show this visually. It's from wikipedia and I added some notes in green

Plants.jpg (48.52 KiB) Viewed 1362 times

[greenknight]

Yep, that was a perfectly normal Douglas-fir seedling (they're in the Pine family, so you weren't totally wrong in referring to it as a pine seedling. Not actually firs, either, they're in their own genus).

[Licespray]

Seedlings with a third cotyledeon tend to develop normal mature growth. Whatever causes the 3rd cotyledon to develop usually doesn't affect the growing point.

I had a P. Pringlie grow with 3 and it turned into a normal seedling. Another that grew normal has since split into 2 stems (they’re maybe an inch tall?)