What Are the Rosette Leaves on an Arabidopsis Plant?

Rosette Leaves

• Many plants form a rosette of basal leaves around the stem, which may have leaves on it. In the Cruciferae family, morisia, a yellow-flowered perennial, also forms a rosette of basal leaves. While some annuals, like arabidopsis, form basal rosettes, they occur often on biennial plants, which form the rosettes in the first year of growth and sprout flowering stems in the second year. Common plants that produce basal foliage rosettes include foxglove, some verbascums and many members of the Campanula genus, including Canterbury bells (Campanula medium).

Arabidopsis Characteristics

• Arabidopsis thaliana is a small plant, growing no larger than 18 inches tall. The basal rosettes consist of spatulate, hairy, toothed leaves, each of which grows to be about 2 1/4 inches long. The stems are branched with very few oblong leaves. Racemes, or clusters of tiny white flowers, with four petals apiece, grow at the ends of the branches. The plants are noted for producing large amounts of seed.

Uses

• Arabidopsis is known not for its nutritional, medicinal or ornamental qualities, but for its utility to the international community of cellular and molecular biologists who study flowering plants. Its relatively small genome has been completely sequenced and all five chromosomes have been mapped. It is inexpensive, prolific and easy to grow in restricted laboratory space and has a short life cycle of six weeks. Mutant strains are easy to produce and readily available to the scientific community.

Arabidopsis Facts

• Samples of arabidopsis have been collected from all over the world, allowing scientists to study the many ways that the plant has adapted to various environmental conditions. Changes in the character of the basal leaves are among the aspects under study. The shapes of the leaves and the relative degree of hairiness are subject to variation according to the plant's origins.