🚀 go-pugleaf

Hi everyone!
  This is just a short update on my experiments on growning clover plants.  I
uprooted a number of clovers that had 4 or 5 leaves and took them home to grow
in pots.  Most have died.  One has only been producing 3 leaves and so is
doomed (I want the pot back!)...  One has done very well.  I took one of the
promising shoots and buried it into another pot so that the two plants are
still connected (this is much more gentle than cutting and less dangerous to
the plant's health).  I have obtained several nice large 4 leaf clusters, about
one for every 10 3 leaf clusters (I have not kept careful records :-( ).  For a
while it was producing 4 leaf clusters in which one of the leaves was small.
Just last week it generated another 5 leaf cluster.

So there is some kind of factor being passed on through the growing shoot.  I
don't know if it is genetic or extrachromosomal, but the plant is capable of
making 3, 3.5, 4 and 5 leaf clusters at high frequencies.  I don't know yet if
one can select a shoot that consistantly produces clusters with more than 3
leaves.  Since I'm only doing 'somatic' growth, many questions about the
genetics are unanswered.

  Tom Schneider
  National Cancer Institute
  Laboratory of Mathematical Biology
  Frederick, Maryland  21701-1013
  toms@ncifcrf.gov