Dear All,
I have sown some seeds of a Hodgsonia heteroclita fruit from Cucurbitaceae family, but the leaves structure which is thought to be the most important key feature for identifying the two species of this plant shows different morphological feature. It is recorded that H. macrocarpa leaves are three lobed and that of H. heteroclita are five lobed. However the seeds of the same when germinated produced two lobed, three lobed and five lobed leaves. What might be the possible reason and how can it be resolved?
If you observed them at very early stage then it is possible as developmental heterophylly, but ith maturity they would show characteristic lobe numbers. If not, then then there is abmixture of seed population and so on. Natural variations are highly possible, and so does environment (growth conditions in chamber/ green houses). best wishes. Biswa
Seems that your seeds are heterozygous and segregating for lobe number you might need to self them for more advanced generations to get homozygous seeds.
Don't know during which plant developmental stage you observed these mixed leaf structures. But, as Biswapriya suggested, probably you need to wait and check the fully-matured leaves, as the young leaves are still growing and the remaining lobes have not formed yet.
Also, Mohamed raised a good point, what if a plant organ phenotype is decided by allelic genetic segregation results, how would a Plant Taxonomist document it? Especially a QTL trait.
I think the term of variation could be heteroblasty, an interactive action of juvenility and low loght frequent in cucurnùbitae. If a critical size is not reached leaf shape tends to remain immature. Dr Jones made a set of observations in http://www.academicroom.com/article/does-shade-prolong-juvenile-development-morphological-analysis-leaf-shape-changes-cucurbita-argyrosperma-subsp-sororia-c
Might be segregating for the gene/QTL controlling lobe number traits as Mohamed El-Soda mentioned in his answer
please follow the description of this species in flora of China, this species has 3-5 lobed leaves, so this character of lobes number may not be helpful for u to distinguish it from the other species i.e., H. macrocarpa
http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=2&taxon_id=220006432
For heteroblastic leaves like these ones can be, a control treatment in low light and high light and leaf lamina length observation should solve shape variability
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