On a trip to south central Alaska last week, I encountered what I believe to be an aberration of Monkshood (Aconitum delphinifolium). How rare is an all white plant?
Albino form of Aconitum is rare indeed: http://williamminehart.blogspot.com/2007/08/blog-post_28.html
I've not seen a white Aconitum, but Delphinium is a close relative, and I see about 1 in 10 000 to 1 in 50 000 plants with albinism.
I think that this has been discussed before: an albino should be all white, including the leaves, stems, and all flower parts. This plant only has white petals; so it's not an albino.
White leaves? It's not a plant, it's a dead thing. In albino humans, it's a single missing pigment. In plants, to have white flowers and white herbage means to loose at least two different pigments: antocyan and chlorophyll. A plant without chlorophyll cannot survive.
The analogy there would be for an animal to have no red haemoglobin pigment, which would also be lethal! Since albino animals do have haemoglobin, I guess it is reasonable to consider plants as albino if they have chlorophyll but no other pigments.
Last year in the moist meadow on my property at 8,000' elevation in Big Sky, MT, I doscovered a small group of Mountain Bluebells (Mertensia ciliata) with white flowers. I staked them out, and they have bloomed again this year. How can they do that without antocyan and chlorophyll? The photo ont he left was in 2011, and that on the right taken June 30 this year.
That's what I thought as well. I guess there can be albinos in the flora world just as there are in the fauna world. Fascinating. Best, Rip
Probably, this is not just a loss of antocyan, but some more general pathway is broken. The inflorescence looks quite sickly.
There is plenty of discussion on the Web about albino plants; and, yes, they have no chlorophyll and will not survive unless they are obtaining nutrients from another plant. The plant under discussion is a white-flowered plant that may be rare and interesting, but it is not an albino.
