Quote:
Originally Posted by FLRedHeart
OK, meditate on it a little though  because it's what you said, not me. 
There are plenty of references in the literature and Charles Rick who I met in his final years, and you surely respect and likely contacted, was interested in polycots and the genetics of them. I'm sure if we tried we could dig up his reference to tetracots if it were pressing, and since you're OK with it I'll "stick with Rick" on this one...
Back to the original question in that vein, Arabidopsis thaliana has been considered the model plant for genomic sequencing. Mutations in it that produce phenotypic monocot, dicot, tricot and tetracots are quantified in this Australian paper:
Chaudhury et. al. paper on polycotyly in Arabidopsis and what the plants are like
It is worth reading as it speaks of developmental instability leading to these genetic curiosities and discusses such tetracot mutant plants as producing extra cytokinins and interestingly showing different growth habits and early flowering. We can agree that they are very interest plants 
Thanks Marsha, I bet you find the ancients as mesmerizing to read about as I do and find what the authors of the above paper call precocious flowering an interesting characteristic in subtropical summers  |
Yes, I also knew Charles Rick and when Craig LeHoullier and I were publishing an international newsletter called Off The Vine in the early 90's Craig interviewed him as well. Yes, I know the PGRC as well.
And yes, I know the importance of Arabidopsis in research, it followed all the mutational work with fruit flies that I worked with when I was at Cornell and had to bring them home for Xmas and use chloroform to knock them out and almost did the same to me.
Yes, I'm that old, but I'm 75 and still alive.
Shall all interested parties please now consider meditating about this topic b'c IMO we've pretty much beaten it to death.
Carolyn