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Cactiflora (ccf), a novel proliferated flower mutant
Rick, C.M.
Department of Vegetable Crops, University of California, Davis, California 95616.
This mutant (3-805) was encountered in our program of EMS mutagenesis. It bears close resemblance to a
variant described in Genetics 30:374-362 (1945) and other in the intervening years, discovered as spontaneous
unfruitful mutants in experimental and commercial fields and maintained clonally for several years. Since they did
not appear in pedigreed families and were totally sterile, it was impossible to either maintain them via sexual
reproduction or ascertain their inheritance. Patience again paid off, as this similar or identical cactiflora mutant was
found in an M2 of EMS-treated cv. Castelemart. The mutant plants are normal in all respects except for an extreme
modification of flower morphology, also reflected in the form of its (parthenocarpic) fruits. The flower is grossly
fasciated with consequent increase in corolla and calyx segments. The center of the flower is transmogrified by a
distorted fusing of androecium, gynoecium, and green tissue that tends to project beyond the normal position of
reproductive parts as the flower ages. This jumble of parts often continues to develop into a fruit-like structure of
considerable size, up to 8 cm diam., which results in a irregular distorted mass of fruit-like tissue, in which are
imbedded anthers and other flower part, lacking seeds in every dissected example. The floral structures are large
and persistent, rendering them more showy at a distance than + flowers.
Since in every examination of cactiflora, male and female sterility was complete, the only mode of sexual
transmission possible is via selfed heterozygous, yielding F2 segregations. Of four F3 families grown in 1993, two
were completely normal, the other two segregated, yielding a total of 21 normal (+) plants and 5 ccf. Since this
segregation does not deviate significantly from 3:1, it is assumed that cactiflora is determined by a single recessive
gene, which we symbolize ccf.
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