Flower Development

I recently gave a presentation to the Alaska Peony Growers Association about my feeble attempts to classify peonies into singles, doubles, semi-doubles, etc. Even the experts in the field often classify them differently, and they can even differ from the breeder! In addition, many of us have seen all kinds of weird development on peonies including plants that have singles, doubles and semi doubles on one plant. The link below is an older video but I haven’t found an updated one. Nevertheless, it provides an interesting geneticists-eye-view of how sepals, petals, stamens and pistils are formed. It is not even about peonies, but a little mustard, Arabidopsis. It’s worth watching. And while you are watching, think weird peonies!  Here’s one with all sepals!

Science Matters: the ABCs of flower development