MONSTER plants that are all flower and no leaf could soon be with us, now
biologists have discovered how to make plants grow petals in place of
leaves.
As long ago as 1790, the German philosopher and playwright Johann Wolfgang
von Goethe suggested that flower petals might be modified leaves. Over the past
decade, biologists have uncovered three groups of genes that govern flower
formation. If these genes are disabled, all the flower’s petals, stamens and
carpels are turned into leaf-like sepals.
But the reverse exercise of activating these genes in leaves failed to turn
them into petals. Then last…
