25 May 2003 21:13:19 -0700 galathaea wrote:
(snipped what I wrote)


While others omg each other to make themselves feel better about being
jerks, I see that some of your question have still been left

Well, my killfile has been greatly effective for the past many years and
you are welcome to copy and use it. I waste none of my time on anything
they write.

http://www.archimedesplutonium.com/M...llfiledom.html


unanswered. One concerns the evolutionary homologies of the
cotyledons, ie. can cotyledon shape be used for phylogenetic
relationships. Unfortunately, the "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny"

Not exactly sure of what that means, or is trying to convey.

I brought in the subject of animals and vestigial evolutionary form
such as the example of gill slits in humans because it appears that
most first leaves of plants look about the same and are very different
from the later mature leaves of those plants.

So one of my questions was whether these first leaves have some
better energy capture of photosynthesis that later mature leaves lack
in quality of photosynthesis capture. Sort of like the idea that a beginner
child of bicycle uses trainer wheels before going solo.

So are these cotyledon first leaves superior to later leaves? Or would
any and all plants be better off if there first leaves were noncotyledon and
were exactly like all the other later mature leaves? If so would suggest
that cotyledon leaves are evolutionary vestiges just as gill slits in
humans are evolutionary vestiges and although they act as the first
photosynthesis of the plant, they are inferior to the photosynthesis
if these first leaves were not cotyledon but rather instead what the
future mature leaves are.

I doubt any scientist has researched whether a cotyledon first leave
is any superior to later leaves. My guess at this time is that they are
inferior in photosynthesis because they are evolutionary remnants
of the gene coding just like gill slits are remnants of nonfunction.

I would guess if there were a means of testing whether a later leaf is
superior in photosynthesis to a cotyledon leaf that such would be the
case. That is a guess. A guessed based on the idea that animals have
remnants that the gene code cannot seem to get rid of and that the
cotyledon first leaves were the aeons ago leaves like gill slits in humans.

Can you think of a means of testing whether a cotyledon leaf is superior
or inferior in photosynthesis to a later mature leaf? I cannot not at this
moment but I am unfamilar with the literature and methods of botany
to do such a test. Perhaps someone has already found a means of doing
that test.

I have a baby pear true at this very moment coming from seed. It had
a cotyledon first leaves and now it has 2 new leaves of what a pear
leaf really is. So I wonder if a means of testing the photosynthesis
of the cotyledon leaf of pear and then the photosynthesis ability of the
next 2 leaves of that pear is.


pattern found in animals does not apply anywhere near as well in
plants. This is particularly true after the seed is formed, were much
separation of form has alreadt occurred. The cotyledon's shape can be
fairly similar across several species of a genera, but it rarely keeps
this similarity over genera. This is because the duties of the

Yes, my pinenut trees seem to have the same first leaves as later mature
leaves of that pine. But I wonder if any pine or spruce or evergreen has
a cotyledon that looks more like a pear cotyledon than mature pine
leaves. I wonder if we trace all cotyledon leaves of all plants whether that
track leads to the evolutionary history of the past to common ancestors.

Perhaps the gene coding of all plants of the genetic region that does the
cotyledon maybe a marker of the history of all plant species, that we
can tell which species is ancestral to another.


cotyledon often must be structured to particular environments.

Well if that is the case then it sinks the idea that cotyledon is an
evolutionary remnant. Perhaps a fractional or percentage adaption
because most cotyledons are fairly similar. So that environment has
not played much of a role.


However, the cotyledon's role does have a fairly large evolutionary
history in the vascular plants. It was a necessary adaptation to

You know how blood is often compared between species to find out
if one is ancestral to the other. Perhaps cotyledon variations is a marker
in plants to tell if one is ancestral to another.


support plant growth through to the phase where it can produce enough
food on its own by photosynthesis. In fact, the number of them (1 or

Yes, but that is the important question for me to find out. I want to know
if cotyledon leaves are superior in anyway to later leaves. I would guess
they are inferior because they are evolutionary vestiges like gill slits in
humans that the gene code could not get rid of totally. I would guess that
if plants could have a choice of their first leaves being cotyledon or being
what later mature leaves are that all plants would forego the cotyledon
stage and have all of its leaves, the very first ones all be what the later
mature leaves look like. This guess is based on the presumption that later
leaves of a plant species are its most efficient photosynthethic leaves. And
that the first leaves of cotyledon are like a dumpsite of ancient genetics
of that plant, just as human embryos get rid of its gill slit during the embryo
stage.



2) separates two major evolutionary forms of the vascular plants, the
monocots and the dicots.

I bet if all plants had their choice, they would choice having all their leaves
from their first to their last as all the same and that the cotyledon stage of
a plant is the getting rid of ancient genetics that are there. I would need some
reliable experimental method to test whether cotyledon leaves are superior or
inferior to later leaves. Such a method probably does not exist yet.

Archimedes Plutonium,
whole entire Universe is just one big atom where dots
of the electron-dot-cloud are galaxies