Hernandez 1

Oscar Hernandez

Biology 1615

Professor Mohamed

July 29, 2015

The Maintenance of Mixed Mating by Cleistogamy in the Perennial Violet Viola

Septemloba (Violaceae)

There are two approaches for plants when mating, one is cleistogamy (CL) and the

other is chasmogamy (CH). CL plants are ones that breed by using non-opening, self-

pollinating flowers such as peanuts, peas, and beans. CH plants are ones that open at

maturity to allow cross pollination, also known as outcrossing. The purpose of this

experiment was to test the hypothesis that the production of CL and CH flowers by a

perennial violet accounts for adaptive phenotypic plasticity, which is an organisms’ ability

to change its’ phenotype in response to changes in the environment.

Violaceae is found in open sandy woodlands and they produce CH flowers from late

winter to early spring, CL flowers are produced in the fall. They monitored the CH and CL

production of 215 naturally occurring plants at the study site in 2001 and 2002. They were

examined for flowers and fruits every two weeks from January 2001 to January 2002, and

monthly until September 2002. They induced the plants by exposing them to an appropriate

day length and temperature. When they had flower buds they were planted back into the

field when next to naturally occurring plants that were at peak bud production.
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The fruit set of naturally occurring CH flowers was 27% in 2001 and 42% in 2002.

As for CL flowers their fruit set was 67% in 2001 and 55% in 2002. The fruit sets had a

bigger difference during the peak of CL flowering season in each year, than during the peak

of CH flowering. CL flowers had greater percentage germination for seeds than CH. Fruit

set of induced CL flowers was greater than CH in all 4 seasons. Data showed that the two

flower groups produced similar number of seeds but mean biomass per seed was 15%

greater for seeds produced by CL flowers. The data of flower, fruit, and seed biomass

revealed a threefold advantage to CL production.

No support was found for the hypothesis regarding phenotype changes in response

to environment changes. CL flowers were more economical to produce and they had greater

germination percentage, this indicates a considerable advantage to CL. This still didn’t

answer the question of why CH flowers continue to produce when CL flowers are superior.

The fruit set data was compiled and showed that CL flowers were at a high production even

in the CH season which means that environment conditions are more favorable for fruit

production during the CH season regardless of flower type. From the data we can see that

CH were more energetically expensive to produce and had lower fruit set than CL. There is

still no explanation why CH flowers in this species have not been eliminated by natural

selection. It was concluded that the forces that contribute to mixed mating in cleistogamous

species are still unidentified.