Plant Mutations - have you seen any?

[Candy]

My mom called last week and she was telling me about a couple of strange dandilions she found out in the woods so I started looking around and I came across this vido and I sent it to her and she said that this is what she saw.
Has anyone else seen this? Seems to be mostly in Michigan.

I have a link for videos but because Im a new member I can't post it so I guess I will have to tell you.

The dandilions have very broad stems, over an inch and they are flat. Each stem has deformed and multiple heads. The one's my mom saw had 5 heads.

Kinda creepy.

 

[Dawn419]

Hi Candy!

I had a clump of Black-eyes Susans last year that sound just like you are describing.

I took severl pix of it while it was growing but they're on the external hard drive at this time. I'll try and find them in a few days.

You only need 3 more posts and then you can start posting links and pictures. Or you can PM me the link and I'll post it for ya.

 

[moolie]

There are tons of dandelion-type flowers out there, including Hawk's Beard which is what it sounds like your Mom saw.

A couple of links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taraxacum
http://theseedsite.co.uk/weeds3.html

Another dandelion-type flower is salsify, which we grow for the oyster-flavoured roots.

Many, but not all, of these flowers have a milky sap like lettuces

 

[Candy]

Im pretty sure these are weird dandilions.. soon I will post the link.

 

[ThrottleJockey]

I have some mutated carrots. We didn't eat all our carrots from the garden last year and this spring they started growing in the refer. I buried them to see what they would do, but a couple of them have really weird tops. One looks more like dill weed and another has really broad leafs.

 

[the funny farm6]

We used to find dandilions like that when I was a kid. They were almost like siamese flowers, the stem was bigger (some times you could see that it was 2 or more stems together) and there would be 2 (or more) flowers or 1 extra large flower-most of the time a longer oval shape. I haven't seen one for a long time.

 

[moolie]

I have some mutated carrots. We didn't eat all our carrots from the garden last year and this spring they started growing in the refer. I buried them to see what they would do, but a couple of them have really weird tops. One looks more like dill weed and another has really broad leafs.

Carrots are biennial, what you are seeing is the second year stage--let them grow and go to seed and save the seed for the following year

 

[ThrottleJockey]

I have some mutated carrots. We didn't eat all our carrots from the garden last year and this spring they started growing in the refer. I buried them to see what they would do, but a couple of them have really weird tops. One looks more like dill weed and another has really broad leafs.

Carrots are biennial, what you are seeing is the second year stage--let them grow and go to seed and save the seed for the following year

Actually, these are hybrid and thus the seeds will most likely be worthless.

 

[Big_White]

Actually, these are hybrid and thus the seeds will most likely be worthless

Not true, just because seeds are hybrid do not make them worthless. given time and selective saving, you could go back to the original parent plants, or make your own twist on your favorite by breeding them back to each other. Saving for the genotype you enjoy most. I know of a man that does this with tomatoe hybrids, because so many of the parent plants are no longer available on the market. Hybrid does not equal worthless. just means a little more work

 

[Dawn419]

Took a break earlier and decided to do a search (out of curiosity) on Black-eyed Susan flower/stem mutations and found a neat article on Fasciation: Fascinating distortions of the plant world.

My BES plant looked just like the one in the link.