A seedling acer palmatum with 3 'seed leaves'. The true leaves are coming in as a set of 3 also. The true leaves are rotated 60 degrees relative to the cotyledons How unusual is a seedling like this? Do I expect the leaves to continue to come in sets of 3? Thanks keith
Rare, but far from unknown, for dicots to be "tricots". As is commonly the case, this individual looks like one larger (normal-size) cotyledon and two smaller, probably derived from the second cotyledon being split. It looks to me like just two normal leaves starting to appear there, but keep it under observation, and see what happens. I have seen occasional maple shoots with leaves in whorls of three, though it is rare.
It will die. I just discarded one that did the same thing. It did make a set of three reall leaves but didnt grow after that. Is it planted in 100% turface?
Tex Yes it is planted in pure turface. I am attaching a photo from last night showing the 3 true leaves. I hope it isn't doomed. I have had some seedlings with a fused looking 3d true leaf that never put on any additional growth. (2 like that last year). Thanks for the input. Michael, I am hoping for the best! keith
I find that they happen quite often. I even have some that have four cotyledons, some that are two headed (two pairs of cotyledons that each have leaves coming out from them). I have had them live, but they do tend to be problemmatic. Here is a picture of one in paticular that I thought was going to be special (All Maples Are Special!), it continued leafing out in three's all summer and when it went dorment all the buds were in three's instead of the typicial two. It leafed out this year and now grows in two's.
As for "I don't see why it should! Just because one did, it doesn't mean others will also do so." Fair enough, it will not necessarily die. But I did just toss one with the same mal-adaptive trait. And since the species has been intensly cultivated for a couple of centuries, and we do not see any 'tricot' cultivars (out of 400 or so) I think it's fair to say this is a waste basket seedling selection. <-- snip -->
I would guess Benishien's example demonstrates the reasons why - the condition is not persistent. There's no reason why more than two cotyledons is maladaptive; many conifers of course commonly have far more than two - photo of a Pinus pinaster seedling with 8 cotyledons: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Seekiefer_(Pinus_pinaster)_14d_1.jpg The fact that it is so uncommon in flowering plants suggests there must be other reasons for its rarity.
