Dave Poole wrote:
Sorry but you're wrong about the way seeds produce roots. Seeds
produce roots by:

(snip)

) That was my part one revision! And yes you are absolutely right. I
have come to the conclusion I did precisely because I thought as a
dicotyledon, the axillary roots had developed sooner because of the
circumstances of the seed, found on the ground rather than deeply
planted, I kept thinking about 'abnormality' rather than the correct
order of things developing. I suppose this was brought on by the way
the finder found the seed lying just there ...

Roots are not produced in all directions and from various parts of the
seed. They develop only from the embryo to support it, which means
they can only originate from a single point. The rooting shown in the
photograph is typically adventitious and characteristic of a tuber or
rhizome.

Yes - but the shape is not characteristic of a tuber or rhizome. I
thought the seed had cracked, like an avocado do, and sent its main
radicle and then the axillary roots developed from that point in a
humid/moist atmosphere, the roots would have followed the line. The
roots on the pictures are not all over, but if you look they come from
one single line, which made me think of the avocado, that and the
perfect 'bottom' the seed had, and again, the 'odd circumstances' that
seed developed.

It probably is. Look again. That 'eye' is an abscission scar typical
of stoloniferously produced tubers.

A leaf scar rather than a flower/fruit? (I wish I had my notes with me
....). The seed's very firm too. Wouldn't a spud be all soft by now
after all those roots and efforts?

I've seen imperfectly formed
potatoes that are almost identical to this. They are formed on
lateral shoots which develop at or above ground level and fail to grow
down into the soil. It usually happens at the end of the growing
season and instead of the stem tip forming a proper swollen tuber, it
becomes stunted. The pic is too unclear to be 100% certain, but it's
odds-on that its a spud.

Yes. I got derouted by the perfect 'bottom'. But yes and I only wish I
could hold the damn thing. I really enjoy ident. exercise.