Experimentally Induced Twinning in Plants

Abstract

IT is well known that characteristic changes in leaf-form and growth habit can be induced by treating shoot apices with synthetic growth substances. The question arises as to whether entire plant embryos also can be induced to develop abnormally by the action of growth regulators. For this purpose the solutions must be applied in a suitable manner to the earliest embryo stages through the growing carpel walls, or it would be necessary to remove the still quite small embryos and to expose them in vitro to the proper influences. Both methods are difficult to apply and have as yet proved unsatisfactory.