From: klier@iscsvax.uni.edu
Subject: Re: Pink pansies turning bordeau!
Date: 13 Jul 93 12:11:41 -0600

ceci@lysator.liu.se (Cecilia Henningsson) writes:
> I have two store-bought pink pansies (Viola wittrockiana, probably
> Ultima pink). A part of one plant now sports wine-red flowers. Some
> flowers are a good deep bordeau, others are somewhere inbetween the
> usual pale pink and the bordeau. I've checked, so it's not a
> seedling, but actually _part_ of one of the original plants.  
> My question is: Why? Why do some flowers change colour, and will
> this happen to the rest of the plant, and will it happen to all
> plants?  I've ordered seed for Ultima Pink pansies, so I really want
> to know!

Sounds like you've got a plant with a somatic mutation (a mutation
that does not affect the pollen or ovules)... the whole part of the
plant above where the mutation occured is likely to be affected, but
nowhere else.

Sometimes you'll see "mosaics" arising because of this-- things like
plants with longitudinally striped leaves because the chloroplasts got
left out of or turned off in some of the leaf cells.  Sometimes you'll
see an entire branch that's white (then the rest of the plant has to
give it sugar).

If you want the wine-colored flowers, you can probably make a cutting
of the affected part of the plant and propagate it asexually.  But
your seedlings are likely to be plain pink...

Kay Klier  Biology Dept  UNI  (where it is raining yet again today)