
04/23/2025
These plants continue to wow me! You may have to zoom in to see, but just above where a new leaf is growing, there is a casing of a flower bud. This is an awesome example of developmental plasticity in action. This pawpaw tree decided that making a flower bud wouldn’t be the best option for growth and survival and changed course to grow a leaf bud instead. This is likely due to environmental influence like temperature and water. While certainly not unheard of, it’s fairly rare to catch this outside of controlled lab conditions. Science! 🧬🍃