By: Martin Grantham

Martin Grantham — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 00:21:41 +0000

This article omits a couple ideas important to understanding the phenomenon of Albino plants:
1. All chlorophyll resides in the chloroplasts within plant cells and chloroplasts have genes of their own. Chloroplasts can be lost from plant cells or loose their ability to make chlorophyll without any change in the plant’s nuclear genes. Sometimes a nuclear gene may be involved in disabling chloroplasts (because a few genes have moved from chloroplasts into the nuclear genome) but more often a chloroplast gene is involved. Chloroplasts that loose the ability to make chlorophyll may still increase in number within cells and by random sorting during cell division some cells may end up having only nonfunctional chloroplasts and thus be albino.
2. Plants are very different from animals in the way they build their more indeterminant bodies. They have localized growing tips or zones that remain embryonic called meristems (while mature animals have dispersed stem cells for regeneration). If by the sorting process mentioned above, all cells in the shoot meristem loose all functional chloroplasts, the entire shoot that they give rise to will be albino. Meristems vary among plants from single cells to aggregates of cells, and more complex aggregates in which certain cells give rise only to certain portions of the shoot. When only certain cells in a more complex meristem lack functional chloroplasts, stable variegated shoots may be produced as is seen in many horticultural selections. In less rigidly organized meristems, variegation may be unstable and change as the shoots develop and branch, usually sorting out into green and albino branches eventually.
An hypothesis: Stable variegation does not seem to occur in coast redwood. The closest thing would be the cultivar sold as S. sempervirens ‘adpressa’ and several other names. This is a different type of phenomenon in which chloroplast competence is delayed so tip growth is white until fully mature. The coast redwood meristem is of the simple type and when dysfunctional chloroplasts are present in an individual, sorting yields either normal or pure albino shoots. The group of trees growing together that all have albino shoots at the base may all have arisen from one individual after fire. That individual had a masked population of nonfunctional chloroplasts that is revealed when cell sorting produces albino meristems. I would like to know if climbing the trees would reveal higher albino shoots, or if something unusual is happening in the lignotubers of these trees?

By: Jennifer Frazer

Jennifer Frazer — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 19:34:42 +0000

It’s true that I have not. I read that they were very dark though. But perhaps murky *is* a bit of an overstatement. Thanks for pointing out. : )

By: The Bobs

The Bobs — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 18:02:42 +0000

“murky” !! Have you ever been in a redwood forest? They are spectacularly beautiful.

I get your point, but they are no darker than any other old growth forest. Maybe less so.

By: Quick Links | A Blog Around The Clock

Quick Links | A Blog Around The Clock — Sun, 26 Dec 2010 19:36:12 +0000

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By: kati

kati — Sat, 25 Dec 2010 02:18:48 +0000

a live replacement for the “flocked” christmas tree! now if only i could find a pink one, i’d be sold! so interesting. i really want to know how it works since they are supposedly just clones.