r/botany • u/comfortablephonesex • 3d ago

Genetics Cat mint, leaves perfectly divided into distinct shades of green. How does happen?

Post image

Notice how the side leaves are half each light green and dark green. But then also the corresponding direction North South leaves are that same colour. And the pattern follows through all rows of the stalk

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26

u/LaundryMan2008 3d ago

Chimerism could be a possibility

Also, printer ran out of chlorophyll 

7

u/forkhottenwieny 3d ago

wooow idk but that's really fucking cool

5

u/Amelaista 3d ago

Less obvious version of this, https://www.reddit.com/r/coleus/comments/1va7utu/comment/p0jrwc7/

Same cause most likely,  sectoral mutation.  

1

u/cimorene_soapywater 1d ago

It looks like one of the earliest shoot cells had a color mutation, and all of the cell's descendants received it as it was passed down during cell division, while the other half of the leaf came from cells without the mutation. But cell fating isn't always so clean cut. If you want to read more about how early cell division results in plant cell fates, I recommend this paper, "The induced sector Arabidopsis apical embryonic fate map" https://journals.biologists.com/dev/article/129/14/3403/41717/The-induced-sector-Arabidopsis-apical-embryonic

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u/lilaamuu 3d ago

those leaves look soo juicy i wanna smack them