The rotated-lamina syndrome. IV. Relationships between rotation and symmetry in Magnolia and other cases

Abstract

Further variations of the rotated-lamina syndrome are described in Magnolia spp. and Rhamnus imeretinus, as well as an abnormal adult shoot of Ulmus glabra without lamina rotation. All magnolias investigated show lamina rotation, but there are four possible forms of shoot symmetry: (i) dorsiventral distichous shoots with the form of rotated-lamina syndrome previously described, i.e., laminae of young leaves all face towards the same (upper) side of the bud or towards the parental axis in axillary buds; (ii) another form of dorsiventral symmetry in which lamina rotation occurs in the reverse direction; (iii) spiral phyllotaxis with laminae rotated to face up the genetic spiral; and (iv) spiral phyllotaxis with laminae rotated to face down the genetic spiral. Shoot symmetry and development of lamina rotation in leaf primordia correlate with the taxo-nomic subdivision of the genus. Shoots of R. imeretinus are dorsiventral, with leaves arranged in four ranks, and lamina rotation occurs towards the upper side of the shoot. The sense of rotation of leaf primordia reverses with a periodicity of two plastochrons. In the abnormal shoot of Ulmus without lamina rotation, phyllotaxis was distichous and leaf primordia were symmetrical. The various cases are discussed in relation to the previously erected hypothesis that control of development in dorsiventral shoots with the rotated-lamina syndrome resides in alternating states of asymmetry in the shoot apex, and the corollary that a shoot with spiral phyllotaxis and one sense of lamina rotation should result if the state of asymmetry is maintained and does not alternate. Key words: Magnolia spp., Rhamnus imeretinus, Ulmus glabra, leaf, development, dorsiventrality, lamina rotation.