Abstract
IN an article on inducing chlorophyll in albino citrus seedlings, Minessy1 has recently shown by suitable grafting methods that chlorophyll formation was not blocked in the normal plant and that no chlorophyll irregularities appeared when albinos were grafted on to green ones. He mentions that this result apparently seemed to contradict the somewhat accepted view that albinism is due to recessive genes as was claimed by Torres for the Szinkom mandarin. Several other workers, Patel2 in the case of the coconut, Bull3 in the case of the African oil palm, Posnette and Cropley4 in the case of the strawberry, Rick et al. 5 in the case of the tomato, also believed that the cause of albinism was due to certain disturbed genetical factors brought together by cross-pollination. Some botanists have attributed the lack of chlorophyll to infection with an unknown disease. Pretreating citrus seeds with disinfectants such as ‘Ceresan’ and ‘Agrosan’ resulted in the production of seedlings which were nearly all green. Albino avocado seedlings were shown by Wallace and Drake6 to result both from seeds originating from off bloom or late set fruit as well as from matured fruits. Tager and Cameron7 on the other hand, found that albinism could be eliminated in citrus seedlings by the removal of seed-coats before sowing, indicating that the inhibitor of chlorophyll formation resided in the seed coats. Furtado2 has mentioned coconut seedlings exhibiting complete shoot albinism, attributing this to some internal factor and chlorosis due to lack of ferrugenous products in the endosperm.
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References
Minessy, F. A., Nature, 183, 553 (1959).
Menon, K. P. V., and Pandalai, K. M., “The Coconut Palm—A Monograph”, 306 (Indian Central Coconut Committee, Ernakulam, India, 1958).
Bull, R. A., J. Waifor, No. 2, 62 (1954).
Posnette, A. F., and Cropley, R., J. Roy. Hort. Sci., 30, 56 (1955).
Rick, M. C., Thompson, A. E., and Brauer, O., Amer. J. Bot., 46, 1 (1959).
Wallace, J. M., and Drake, R. J., Year Book Calif. Avoc. Soc. for 1956, 156.
Tager, J. M., and Cameron, S. H., Physiol. Plantarum, 10, 302 (1957).
Bolle-Jones, E. W., Plant and Soil, 6, 129 (1955).
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PANDALAI, K., PILLAI, R. Albinism in Coconut Seedlings. Nature 184, 1163 (1959). https://doi.org/10.1038/1841163a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/1841163a0
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