Summary
Studies of the morphological polymorphism for the expression of male sterility in the gynodioecious species Plantago lanceolata revealed two separate series of stamen forms from sterile to fertile. The first type of complete male sterility (MS1) shows a disturbed development of the stamens, which are strongly reduced in size. The second type (MS2) has stamens which are petaloid. In the latter type the corolla and sometimes the pistil are also affected. Evidence is presented that these differences in expression of male sterility are cytoplasmically determined. The plasmon types are designated R and P respectively. In each plasmon type a series of intermediate sex forms occurs. Field counts showed that these intermediates are a non-negligible proportion of most populations. On the average MS1 reaches higher frequencies than MS2. Twenty two out of 27 populations appeared to be polymorphic for plasmon type. The remaining five populations are probably fixed for plasmon P and their distribution over the habitats studied suggests that the fitnesses of the different sex genotypes depend on environmental conditions.
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Grassland Species Research Group Publication No. 54.
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van Damme, J., van Delden, W. Gynodioecy in Plantago lanceolata L I. polymorphism for plasmon type. Heredity 49, 303–318 (1982). https://doi.org/10.1038/hdy.1982.104
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/hdy.1982.104
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