Some Implications of Precocious Flowering in Collospermum

Abstract

In heteroblastic development the juvenile and adult phases of a plant have the same genotype but the phenotypes are different, and Cook (1968, p. 97), noting that such phenotypic plasticity has undoubtedly led to a large number of "paper species," finds it rather shocking that so little information on phenotypic modification is. presented in formal taxonomic work. In the case here described, in the Pacific genus Collospermum (Liliaceae), a single plant can, during its lifetime, display contrasts comparable to some that characterize species or sections in the closely related genus Astelia.