Abstract
IN NATURE of February 2, p. 174, a brief account is given of L. Daniel's experiments in which an artichoke was grafted on a sunflower. The seeds of the transplanted artichoke yielded a series of plants differing from each other in several respects. This result is claimed by the author as a case of inheritance of characters acquired by grafting. Now artichokes very seldom set seed—personally, I have never seen a case; but as there exist several varieties of this species, it is highly probable that many, if not all, artichokes are heterozygous in many respects. Grafting very often causes the scion to produce flowers and seed; it seems very natural that the transplanted artichoke was influenced in that way—a physiological action of purely phenotypical nature without the slightest influence upon the genotypical constitution of the scion; the differences between the individuals of the progeny are here without doubt a consequence of the heterozygous nature of the scion.
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JOHANNSEN, W. Inheritance of Characters Acquired by Grafting. Nature 113, 536 (1924). https://doi.org/10.1038/113536a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/113536a0
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