Spiral

[Kipody]

My son got this cacti in a birthday party.
It was tiny and almost dead but it recuperated.
My question is about the spiraling. it seems as if only two branches are spiraling.
Do you know what creates the spiral?
Can it be induced?
I assume its silvertii but I might be wrong

Resized_20240328_173614_4914.jpeg (70.53 KiB) Viewed 2407 times

[DaveW]

Our plants have a tendency to spiral and all areoles are arranged in a spiral pattern. Seemingly the degree of stem spiralling depends on the concentration of auxins at the growing point.

"So how do plants produce organs at regular intervals? Biologists knew the answer involved cells in the growing plant coordinating with their neighbours to transport the plant hormone auxin to sites where it accumulates."

"Surprisingly, Bhatia found that this feedback loop has to be active not just in the cells on the surface of the growing plant, but also in the cells below. If only surface cells can respond to auxin, the auxin seems to build up too much and starts to leak sideways. This gives rise to the wonderful spiral shaped organs."

https://www.embl.org/news/science/1611-spiral-growth/

https://physics.aps.org/story/v13/st18# ... %20numbers.

https://www.bing.com/images/search?view ... ajaxserp=0

[Kipody]

Dave, thanks for the links.
Its amazing how many things in plants are governed by auxin.
But it still doesn't answer the question of whether this is environmental or genetic or developmental.
The fact that different parts of the same plant behave differently could be the result of somatic mutations but I don't think its very likely.
Some kind of developmental mishap might be more reasonable.
do you know of more examples where it appears in some parts of the plant but not in others?
Cheers

[DaveW]

I'm only a carpenter and amateur cactus grower not a chemist, but one of the best videos on "Cactus Anatomy" I came across was by Jackson Burkholder. It is in 6 parts but if you hang on as one part ends the other starts shortly afterwards.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKunfoYDHLI

[Kipody]

Dave
I am a plant ecologist and you definitely know a lot more than me