Are Cactus Spines Modified Leaves? Morphological and Anatomical Characterization of Saguaro Seedlings (Carnegiea gigantea) with Special Focus on Aerial Organ Primordia
Cristina Betzabeth Miravel-Gabriel, Ryan Koeth, Nayelli Marsch-Martínez, Tania Hernández-Hernández · 2024
Read Are Cactus Spines Modified Leaves? Morphological and Anatomical Characterization of Saguaro Seedlings (Carnegiea gigantea) with Special Focus on Aerial Organ Primordia by Cristina Betzabeth Miravel-Gabriel, Ryan Koeth, Nayelli Marsch-Martínez, Tania Hernández-Hernández (2024) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/pmc-11644746.txt.
Description
Cristina Miravel-Gabriel and co-authors ask whether cactus spines are really modified leaves in a 2024 paper. Leaf loss was a key step as cacti evolved their water-storing form, and spines appeared alongside it. Century-old studies claimed that leaf buds turned into the bumps called areoles while leaves became spines, but samples were scarce and the claim rested on thin evidence.
The team raised seedlings of the giant saguaro and tracked their growing tip stage by stage. Young seedlings proved easy to grow and slice for study, which the authors document as a lab guide. Their slices showed no clear leaf structures. Instead they found a distinct kind of early bud, possibly leaf-like but lacking firm leaf traits. They reopen the debate on spine origins and propose the seedling as a model for gene-level work.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Cristina Betzabeth Miravel-Gabriel, Ryan Koeth, Nayelli Marsch-Martínez, Tania Hernández-Hernández |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2024 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 45 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |