Mitten shaped leaves?

[dld]

I have noticed that on some PL's that the leaf has like a thumb on either right or left of the leaf, what causes this?

[spudleafwillie]

Rich,

"mittens", or thumbs are caused by the fusing of the first, second, and third leaflets during leaf development. There are 3 types of thumbs formed; left handed, right handed, and the 3rd type where there are both left and right handed thumbs present.

[rockhound]

Hmmm...."Sassafrass-leaved" tomatoes? LOL

[spudleafwillie]

Rockhound, that is exactky what those
PL mittens look like. Thanks for the observation !!

[darthslater]

Feb 13, 2010 20:45:44 GMT -5 spudleafwillie said:

Rockhound, that is exactky what those
PL mittens look like. Thanks for the observation !!

Hey Spud, can you show illustrations of the various leaf forms of the PLs? Alot of people think Pls are all smooth edged. Also,some pictures of the leaves of a Pl ox-heart would be nice to see.

Thank you, Darth

[spudleafwillie]

darth,
heres an example of a PL bicolor heart: tatianastomatobase.com/wiki/Little_Lucky_Heart. If you enlarge the pics you can see the typical smooth edged PL leaves.

A good link to see the various types of leaf edges from the entirely smooth ones to those with smooth lobes and then to the very serrated edges on some varieties is as follows: www.wintersown.org/wseo1/Tomato_Leaf_Scans.html

I hope this answers your questions and request.

Spud

[PVP]

Some potato leaf shapes I have encountered ... maybe some are "intermediate" ... you be the judge ...

[PVP]

[PVP]

[PVP]

[spudleafwillie]

nice pics pap,

All pics are of the typical smooth edged leaves, some leaves have mittens on them

Look aat the pics on www.wintersown.org/wseo1/Tomato_Leaf_Scans.html
and you will see the smooth lobed PL leaves and the deeply serrated leaves.

You will have to check varieties there as some are RL

The key is to look for the lack of compound leaves on the secondary and tertiary leaflets, that is an almost certain but not 100% foolproof way of distinguishing PL leaves from RL leaf forms.

[darthslater]

Hey Master Spud, here are the babies , these are the cross you gave me it is Galinas X Snow white here you can see the 2 different leaf types, these are out of the same batch for those of you who are not aware. Spud can explain this further.

i647.photobucket.com/albums/uu197/DarthSlater_photos/100_0549-1.jpg