Is petal stamenoid can be considered as a true petal?

Hello there,

It's the first time that I post on this forum and I actually just registered as I am having some "animated" discussion with someone at work about what can be considered as a petal or not. So I was wondering if anyone had deep knowledge in botany to help me on this matter.

Right, the question is, can we consider petal stamenoid as a real petal? For me a "real" petal should have a claw and a limb.
I consider as petal stamenoid, a floral piece that have a disformed or immature limb with a filet, and not a real claw. It can have some kind of pollinating bags or not sticked on the limb part.

Well, as it hasn't got a real claw and as the lim is disformed, with pollinating bag or not...it is not a real petal for me.

Am I wrong or not?

I tryed to look a bit on the net for explanation, but I am not really happy of my findings, so I will appreciate any help!

Thanks.

 

I might be able to address this one in a couple weeks, when I return to the office. We have some decent resources on floral morphology and development in our library.

I suspect the answer isn't a simple one, as it's going to depend on definition of terminology. This isn't the answer to your question, but the authors of Determination and Differentiation of Leaf and Petal Primordia in Impatiens balsamina start their abstract with:

It seems to me that they are taking the position that there are clearly-defined organs and then there are intermediates. That view would suggest that petal-like staminodes that have the characteristics of both organs should be treated as...intermediate organs.