Talk:Whorl (botany)

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Comments
Are Whorl's found everywhere or are they indigenous to a specific region? Jawhite552 (talk) 19:10, 23 April 2012 (UTC) What types of flowers are whorl's most commonly found on? Jawhite552 (talk) 19:13, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

what is the defination of essential whrols? Diti Goswami (talk) 04:34, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

Alternative photos
The head photo is confusing because the leaf whorl is obscured by a whorl of blossoms. I wonder if a less complex photo would be better, for example, of the stem of a Michigan lily or perhaps the simple 5-leaf whorls on the stem of Joe Pye weed.Douglas W. Jones (talk) 03:15, 22 June 2012 (UTC)


 * The article is still a stub; seems to me there is room for both, given that for a start one growth habit is typical of certain woody Proteaceae and the other herbaceous. But it would be nice to have the proper name of the lily, and a picture showing more of the plant.
 * IMO the whorl is an aspect of the growth habit and should be shown in that context. I'm interested in the relationship between internode lengths and whorls; with luck late next month I'll be photographing certain Eucalypts that have an intriguing tendency to grow in tiers of foliage like wedding cakes. I haven't yet got my head round some thoughts on the subject. JonRichfield (talk) 17:57, 22 June 2012 (UTC)


 * The proper name of the Michigan Lily is Lilium michiganense.There's a Wikimedia Commons category, but aside from the photo I took specifically to show the leaf whorls, none of the other photos show the stems. Photographing a plant that can be 2 meters tall and simultaneously doing justice to the flower cluster and stem is difficult.  It seems that the vast majority of photographers focus on the blossoms.Douglas W. Jones (talk) 18:43, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Right. I take your point. It is sometimes very irritating. I have only recently taken to photography (digital of course; anything else is not affordable!) But almost all my shots are biological and I take trouble to get lots of shots to illustrate the biological aspects rather than aesthetic aspects. So when I see the opposite effect I sometimes grit my teeth. Anyway, have a look at the article and comment at leisure. Cheers, JonRichfield (talk) 19:39, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

KDS4444 and Helianthus
Hi, I am not wedded to Brabejum, though it is a particularly clear example of a woody plant with whorls. however Helianthus as a rival doesn't make it to first base; it isn't even a flower, let alone a whorl, and the whorls in the flowers aren't even visible in the picture; it is such a strained example as to be misleading. We would do better sticking to Lilium. In any case a flower is a bit of an artificial example. Still, I have replaced the Brabejum picture with a clearer one, and unless you can find a clearer illustration of the whorls comprising a typical and genuine flower, I shall keep an eye open for a convincing example of floral anatomy that illustrates the four floral whorls -- unless you beat me to it of course! Cheers, JonRichfield (talk) 14:13, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I am undone. Not even a flower?? How can it be?  I put the image in because, as I understood it from a mathematical standpoint, the arrangements of the..."florets"... was exactly that of a (again, mathematical) whorl.  Am I misunderstanding the use of the term in a botanical context?  Is there some weird overlap I am not getting?  I do not claim to be either a mathematician nor a botanist but I certainly thought I had the correct animal in the cage, as it were.  And to the extent that I am wrong, the difference could use explaining somewhere by someone who clearly knows more about it that *I* appear to.  N'est pas?   KDS 4444  Talk   08:13, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Hi KD; no problem, do yourself up again; you are not the first non-biologist to fall into that trap. ;-) No harm done anyway, and besides the previous pic of Brabejum wasn't much good; it did require well-informed inspection to make out its whorls properly, so score one for you. The new picture I posted is a lot better for our purposes. Depending on how low your threshold to information overload might be, you might wish to read the WP article on Pseudanthium, or if you cannot bring yourself to think in terms of such an inelegant tetrasyllable, you could enter "Head (botany)", but unfortunately, it would end you up in the same place. Mind you, "pseudanthium" should be a consolatory name to you, because it means "false flower", right? I assume you do know what an inflorescence is? Well, the "flower" of a sunflower or a daisy or dandelion actually isn't a flower at all, but an inflorescence of the pseudanthium type. A floret (literally a small flower) is the name for one of the little flowers making up an inflorescence, particularly if they literally are tiny, as you may see in a sunflower. (Go to Helianthus and page down to near the bottom, where you may see a nice thumbnail of the Jerusalem Artichoke, which as you may know, really is a species of sunflower. Expand the thumbnail and you can plainly see some of the florets on the level part of the inflorescence (called, with unusual clarity for botanical morphologists, a disk)}. By a mathematical whorl, I assume you mean a logarithmic spiral? In the article on phyllotaxis there is a section on "Phyllotaxis and Mathematics", together with illustrations, and you might be interested in the article on the Golden ratio, which is truly marvellous. If you happen to be a fan of the late Martin Gardner, check out the marvellous collection of his maths collections on CD. You can find them at Amazon if you like. If you are young they can be life changing. If not, they are fun. Cheers for now. Anyway, as you can see in some of the pics in Commons, there are nice log spirals in the disks of Helianthus:

JonRichfield (talk) 12:25, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
 * To which I say, "The universe is the most exquisite masterpiece ever constructed by nobody." Martin Gardner was quite a man: I don't know how I have not heard of him before now (or, having heard, not remembered).  Thank you for introducing me.  And for the spirals of inflorescences.  Lovely stuff, all!   KDS 4444  Talk   09:04, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Only a pleasure! Correspondence with someone like you does me a power of good! Many thanks in return. JonRichfield (talk) 09:15, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

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