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AOBPreview originally published online on March 20, 2008
Annals of Botany 2008 101(7):1027-1034; doi:10.1093/aob/mcn031
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© The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Annals of Botany Company. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Quantitative Developmental Analysis of Homeotic Changes in the Inflorescence of Philodendron (Araceae)

Denis Barabé1,*, Christian Lacroix2 and Bernard Jeune1

1 Institut de recherche en biologie végétale, Jardin botanique de Montréal, Université de Montréal, 4101 Sherbrooke Est, Montréal, H1X 2B2, Canada
2 Department of Biology, University of Prince Edward Island, 550 University Avenue, Charlottetown, PEI, C1A 4P3, Canada

* For correspondence. E-mail denis.barabe{at}umontreal.ca

Received: 11 January 2008    Returned for revision: 31 January 2008    Accepted: 14 February 2008    Published electronically: 20 March 2008

Background and Aims: The inflorescence of Philodendron constitutes an interesting morphological model to analyse the phenomenon of homeosis quantitatively at the floral level. The specific goals of this study were (1) to characterize and quantify the range of homeotic transformation in Philodendron billietiae, and (2) to test the hypothesis that the nature of flowers surrounding atypical bisexual flowers (ABFs) channel the morphological potentialities of atypical bisexual flowers.

Methods: Inflorescences of P. billietiae at different stages of development were observed using SEM. The number of appendices in male, female and sterile flowers were counted on 11 young inflorescences (5–6 flowers per inflorescence). The number of staminodes and carpels on ABFs were counted on 19 inflorescences (n = 143). These data were used for regression and ANOVA analyses.

Results: There was an average of 4·1 stamens per male flower, 9·8 carpels per female flower and 6·8 staminodes per sterile male flower. There was an average of 7·3 floral appendices per atypical flower. Staminodes and carpels are inserted on the same whorl in ABFs. A negative exponential relationship was found between the average number of staminodes and the number of carpels in ABFs. If only the ABFs consisting of less than six carpels are considered, there is a linear relationship between the number of carpels and the average number of staminodes. The value of the slope of the regression equation indicates that on average, in P. billietiae, 1·36 carpels are replaced by one staminode.

Conclusions: In P. billietiae, the number of appendages in female flowers imposes a constraint on the maximum total number of appendages (carpels and staminodes) that can develop on ABFs. The quantitative analyses indicate that the average number of different types of floral appendages on an ABF and the number of organs involved in a homeotic transformation are two independent phenomena.

Key words: Philodendron, positional information, gradient, flower, homeosis, developmental constraint


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