Mutant mandrake from hell

[melsplants]

Hi all

Does any one know why mandrake plants sometimes have different leaves .I have loads of mandrakes (Mandragora Officinarum) that have flat smooth cabbage green leaves .now i have one that has started growing crumpled light green leaves .I am absolutely sure it is Officinarum because it flowerd in March .

How can this be

Mel

[Vertmorpheus]

wow,talking plants. hello, talking plants.

Would you have any more cultivation details? If they're all from the same parent or seed stock grown under more or less the same conditions then it might just be a natural variation... or I have found that if seeds get wetting agents on em or in em too fast, it can make the first few sets of leaves very bubbly and wrinkly looking.

Otherwise, I'll assume you have a lovely english cottage style garden (just to be a bigoted colonial n all that) and as such plants are in dif places around the yard...which means dif nutrients, no matter how much it all seems the same... could be that the weirdo isnt so close to the house so it gets less fallout and cumulative lead, different pH so dif availability of nutes, etc? Copper levels can affect the midrib and margin structure of some plants, too much copper reduces Iron availability which can mess with greenness of leaves, etc. Or if you have phosphates in your soil above "typical" levels it can reduce availability of zinc, copper, calcium, potassium... fairly serious shifts going on there... I find once plants start running short on the "crunchy mineral" nutes you get strange growth, deformities in form n structure, more bugs, dodgier stress resistance, etc.

Hard to give an exact answer, buts its either genetics or environment really! Could your seed be hybrid seed? Is one of them growing somewhere you washed the car oneday and its been eating detergent? Pics n detail would be good, if you want a more specific answer than "theyre different plants in different places".

VM

[Torsten]

spider mites and other sap suckers puncture the veins of leaves and cause some funky distortions. in excesss this looks like as if they are mutants. the critters may no longer be present and the changes are permanent, although new leaves should then look normal. hit it with a good miticide and see if the new leaves are still mutant

[melsplants]

Thanks for your replies excelent ideas

Both plants are kept in pots filled with peat, the environment is in a green house so that is constantly controlled . They are kept within four or five feet of each other. Both are a similar age .The leaves on the mutant plant from hell look in good condition .Even the new leaves are crumpled looking .No apparent insect activity , but i will nuke em anyway

The seeds were from ebay not from a seed merchant .The seeds could be a hybrid ,I thought all the different varieties needed to be flowering at the same time ,it is something i know very little about .I like the idea of it though .Something from the film little shop of horrors would be nice.I know that other varieties do have grumpled leave but they are very rare

The only difference i can think of is that i sacrificed a couple of virgin serving wenches from my mansion on the hill to the mutant one ha ha

I have tried to upload the pics, I managed to do one but the other mutant one refused to be shown I will try again shortly god knows where they are on this site because i have lost them

How would i find out if it was a hybrid

Regards Mel

[Torsten]

any chance of a pic?

[melsplants]

any chance of a pic?

I am having problems uploading the pic of the plants from hell i have writen to the moderator for assistance .In the meantime i am trawling the net for pictures of mandrake to see if there is one like it

mel

[Torsten]

why don't you upload the images directly into the forum post rather than the gallery?

[melsplants]

why don't you upload the images directly into the forum post rather than the gallery?

I have tried every thing it will not up load, it must be something to do with out going security ,i will take another look later

[Monk]

I have tried every thing it will not up load, it must be something to do with out going security ,i will take another look later

Perhaps the file is too large. Maybe try compressing it before uploading it.

[melsplants]

Perhaps the file is too large. Maybe try compressing it before uploading it.

For some reason my machine has stopped talking to this site .It has no problems with other sites and like i said i did manage to upload one picture to the gallery and that was it caput no more uploads

i will have another go tomorrow ( walks away scratching head )

[melsplants]

I have loaded up a picture of my unmarried sister as an experiment to see if it is the mutant that is the problem or the machine i will post it to see what happens

THE QUICK BROWN FOX JUMPED OVER THE LAZY DOG