Here is a picture of two butts that I cut off of carrots that we ate Thursday.
The carrot stubs have been sitting in water on our windowsill for two days. The one you see on the left has failed to revive but the butt on the right is showing growth in two places, the lower growth is distinctly leaflike but the top one is merely extending a stem. This is really weird to me. On a cellular level what would explain cell division that produces leaves in one piece of tissue but a stem in the other tissue?
I think that stem cells have been created to form the leafy differentiated tissues on the left but that for some reason normal, non-stem cells, cells that are switched to making vertical divisions in a stem, are turned on in the right side protruberance. Does this sound right?
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