Flowering Habit and Vegetative Behaviour in Tea (Camellia sinensis L) Seed Trees in North-East India

• Published in: Annals of botany 1970-06, Vol.34 (3), p.721-735
• Main Author: BARUA, P. K.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Axils; Dormancy; Flower buds; Flowering; Flowers; Habitual behavior; Leaf buds; Leaves; Plants; Seed trees
• ISSN: 0305-7364; 1095-8290
• DOI: 10.1093/oxfordjournals.aob.a084405

Apical growth of a tea shoot occurs by a succession of flushes separated by short periods of rest. This paper describes the external morphology of flowering, fruiting, and abscission of leaves of the tea plant in north-east India in relation to the phasic activity of shoot apices. All shoots on a tree make leafy growth when a new cycle of growth begins in the spring, but terminal buds apparently become dormant as the season advances. Apparently dormant terminal buds shed bud scales, leaving on the stem a considerable number of scars, representing leafless cataphyllary flushes. These cataphyllary flushes are produced at the same time as the leafy flushes on other shoots. A flower is formed only in the axil of a bud scale. Flowers which appear to develop in leaf axils are in fact inserted in the axils of bud scales of the axillary buds. A distal leafy flush is without flowers. Flowers appear in its leaf axils only when the terminal bud starts growth for the next higher flush. A distal floriferous cataphyllary flush appears as a terminal cluster of flowers. Thus, there is an acropetal succession of flowers, flush by flush on a caulome, determined by the phasic activity of the apical bud. The main crop of flowers exposes anthers from the end of the third flush (late September to early October) until the end of the winter period of growth (late January to early February). In some plants a second, minor crop of flowers appears in the spring between the end of the first and beginning of the second flushes. In spite of considerable time lag between anthesis, the fruits produced by these two crops of flowers mature and dehisce at the same time during October to November. Abscission of leaves is also dependent upon the phasic activity of the apical buds. Only the top two flushes of a shoot possess leaves. Resumption of apical growth for a third flush, leafy or cataphyllary, causes the abscission of leaves on the lowermost of the three flushes. Two cataphyllary flushes therefore result in the loss of all leaves on a shoot.