I would like to add a comment on albino seedlings. I think if the mother plant is a hybrid, and the seeds are due to selfing of the mother plant, albino seedlings might result from nuclei/cytoplasmic incompatibility. 90% of the chloroplast gene products are transported into the chloroplast from nucleus-expressed genes. A subset of these nucleus-expressed gene products have to interact like lock and key with gene products expressed from the chloroplast genome. The chloroplast and its genome is inherited from either maternal parent or less often paternal parent depending on species. In hybrids, the nucleus expressed gene products from one parent might not fit well with the chloroplast gene products of the other parent. And this might be observed in the progeny of the hybrid, when segregation of the nuclear genome occurs. I think this is one cause of appearance of albino seedlings. On Thu, Feb 11, 2021 at 6:50 PM rw2229 via pbs < pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net> wrote: > On Mon, 1 Feb 2021 at 05:32:03 -0800, Kathleen Sayce < > kathleen.sayce@gmail.com> wrote > > > I am curious to know how typical it is for seedlings in monocot groups > to have no chlorophyll. > > > > This fall I noticed a tall Agapanthus in my garden had a few seeds on > the stalk, so I gathered > > those that were left and sprouted them on a window sill, along with > seeds from a Watsonia. So > > far, 14 of the 16 Agapanthus have chlorophyll, 2 do not, 12.5 percent. > The Watsonia pot has 12 > > seedlings, 11 have chlorophyll, 8.3 percent. > > > > 12.5 percent seems high for a known fatal condition among photosynthetic > species. > > > > How common is this condition? > > I suspect more common among monocots than any of us realize. I've grown > bamboo from seed (on those rare occasions when any is set), and iirc a good > 50% of the seedlings lack chlorophyll. > > > _______________________________________________ > pbs mailing list > pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net > http://lists.pacificbulbsociety.net/cgi-bin/… > Unsubscribe: <mailto:pbs-unsubscribe@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net> > _______________________________________________ pbs mailing list pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net http://lists.pacificbulbsociety.net/cgi-bin/… Unsubscribe: <mailto:pbs-unsubscribe@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net>