Here's a Photo!

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:880640}}

It would seem you have a genetic 'sport' -- a new type of plant. Lucky you!

When it goes to flower you might want to keep it far away from any other Basils so the seed pollinates pure. Then try planting that seed to see if you still get this variation.

Wow. o.0

Well, you've got two methods available to produce future generations with this trait: selective pollenation and cloning.

The procedure I've come across for selective pollenation involves tying pantyhose or cheesecloth around the flower stem before the buds open to prevent insect or windblown pollenation. Then you'll need to use a Q-tip and pass pollen between the flowers once they open. Doing it at night'll minimize the chances of bugs sneaking in any other pollen. Then quickly tie the pantyhose back on tight, and just wait until the seed's ready for collecting.

Plant that seed next year, and this time follow the same procedure, but pollenate from plant to plant with the resulting tri-leaf basils. Keep this up long enough, and this mutation should become a stable strain.

You might want to see if any local herb enthusiasts would like to help. For that, you'll need to use the other method, cloning... Which is just propagation by cuttings. And thankfully basil roots very easily from cuttings. Genetic clones will buy you insurance against disaster. Keeping several going in pots year-round will help ensure the survival of what appears to be a new variety.

As much as I LOATH laws that allow lifeforms to be patented, I suggest you file a patent for this mutation. Better you profit from it than ConAgra or Burpee or ADM.

Here is a link that might be useful: Information on legally

As an addendum, until you get a REAL patent, I'd use the "poor man's patent" and photograph the plant's growth. Every couple months, take a couple developed photos, drop them in an envelope, and mail them to yourself. Keep them SEALED. The postmark on the envelope will establish the age of the evidence inside just in case there's a legal challenge.

BTW, you've got 12 months since you opened this thread to apply for the patent. Just FYI.

Good luck!

Whoa, teryaki are you serious? I figured this was a more common trait and that someone would say "oh yeah, I've seen one of those before." Is this really that rare? Is there someone or a group I can contact to research this and find out if I'm the first one to have this type of plant? I tried searching on google for 3 days and came up with absolutely nothing.

Could I just grow the plant indoors with no other plants (or bugs) around to prohibit cross-pollination? Seems safer and easier than trying to wrap up the flowers. Also, how would I go about finding an herb enthusiast in my area? Does this forum or its affiliates have resources for that?

Thanks very much for your help, you guys are the only ones who have responded to me thus far and the only ones to have seen the new "Tri-leaf Red Opal"...;-)

Well, nobody I've talked to has seen such a basil, Google's turned up nothing, and you seem to have completely stumped the forumites, who are a pretty knowledgable bunch! Sounds pretty rare to me. Even if some other basil has turned up this way (although I've found no evidence thereof), it's quite possibly the only tri-leaf Red Opal that's been identified. And from the picture, it really presents some new aesthetic possibilites for basil.

If there's not another basil indoors, then yeah, you could just grow this one in a pot THEN bring it indoors when it's starting to produce flowers. As far as the rest of growing, just follow whatever's produced good basil for you in the past. No need to modify that. I'm not an expert, but I wouldn't think about taking cuttings until midsummer when you've got a nice big plant. Better safe than sorry.

There are some regional forums here on Gardenweb you could try for finding people... More than likely, there'll be some sort of herbal-related event in your area this summer where you could meet people. I really just suggested that because having this plant in more than one location provides it a better chance of survival against disease, pests, or disaster. Even giving some rooted cuttings to responsible friends and/or relatives provides some insurance.

I just don't know what your lifestyle is like, if you're able to devote a good bit of attention to caring for and propagating from this seedling. If you've got the time and patience, by all means, just give a couple rooted cuttings to people you trust to keep offsite for insurance, and do the rest yourself.

I would email or call the Herb Society of America, they're probably the best source of info on whether this is a unique mutation or not.

You're gonna need a better name for it, BTW. As far as I can tell from Google, "Trinity" isn't taken as a basil name. :)

Here is a link that might be useful: HSA contact info

Wow, I'm still in shock...this is so very cool! I will be moving all of my basil outside as soon as it's warm enough. So yeah, if I brought it inside at flowering time, it would be the only one inside. Good advice on waiting until the plant is big and strong before taking cuttings...I will give it several months.

As far as dedicated time, I have plenty of it and I think I can pull this off myself. I will probably give some cuttings to family members for safe keeping as you recommend, and will continue making cuttings and try to produce some viable seed by myself.

Good idea on the name...I guess "Tri-Leaf" kinda blows ;)

Thanks SO much for the info, teryaki. If you'd like I will keep you posted on my progress. (And if I don't find anymore helpful sources, I may have more questions...)

Yeah, I'd like to know how this turns out. :)

Contact HSA, they'll probably have some good info for you on how rare this is.

If you bring this basil inside when it flowers are you going to hand pollinate it? If you're not familiar with this technique, you might do better by putting it in a separate location away from the other basils and let the expert bees take care of this tricky chore.

Another thing, if this is a sport it might never seed true and will only be able to be propagated by rooting cuttings.

If I brought it inside, I would probably have to hand pollinate it. But having never done this before, that may not be the best idea. Unfortunately I only have one protected outdoor area currently, and it will have all of my other basils present.

By saying "seed true", do you mean that it might never produce viable seed, or that the offspring produced via seed might not carry the same trait?

Thanks for the feedback!

It's possible that the seed won't have the same trait. Or maybe some of them will, while others won't, and you'd need to selectively breed for a few generations. It would be worth a try, though.

Even if you can only propagate by cuttings, that's still pretty cool, and with care, you could create an army of tri-leaf basils. :-)

I've been staring longingly at my packet of purple basil seeds, hoping I might be so lucky. There's little chance, of course.

Linda the Jealous

THis is what plant breeders go thru' with each new plant they introduce.

After tracking down several leads I was given by the HSA, I've spoken with a couple of experts/breeders. Although reportedly very rare, one of the guys has seen a "3-lobed" basil before, and it was also red/purple. He's confident however that it doesn't exist commercially and that it has not been thoroughly documented. That being established, I have decided to put some effort into this and see how far I can take it. (Another expert suggested that the trait might simply be spiral torsion in the stem, and that the plant might "grow out of it". Obviously I'm hoping this is not the case.)

Unfortunately I am playing the waiting game for a while until my little guy is big and strong enough to withstand a few cuttings. If the cloning goes well, later in the season I will make a plan to isolate the 3-lobers and flower them. (Question: Could I keep the 3-lobers in the same area as the other basil plants if I was very careful to not let any non-3-lobes produce flowers? I usually pinch them back the entire season anyway, and have rarely let any of my basil even begin to flower.)

Thanks to everyone who has shown interest and given me valuable information!

Onto new questions... I grow my herbs for use in the kitchen and I am very adamant about growing strictly organically. I buy organic seeds, use potting soil free from chemical fertilizer, and so far have only used fert. made from fish and seaweed. These Red Rubins are organic and I would like them to stay that way. I have been looking at root hormone products to use on the cuttings, and it seems like 99% of them are not organic products. The only 100% organic one I have found so far is "RootStock Gel" made by Earth Juice. Although I'm sure it's less effective than the best selling rooting gels and powders, I hate the thought of breaking the organic chain with a manufactured chemical hormone product. There is also a "RootStock Solution" which can be diluted and used to saturate the growing medium. As of now, these would be my two choices.

Anyone out there garden organically, propogate from cuttings, and confronted this issue? As always, TIA.

Neat! :)

It's not that you can't let the three-leafs produce flowers, it's that the seed from those flowers is almost guaranteed NOT to have the unique genetic trait. Since basil's an annual most places, IMO it's worth trying to get viable seed from selective breeding.

Y'know, I've rooted basil time and time again in soil just by watering the cuttings heavily for the first three days, and then just treating it like any other basil. Unless Red Opal's particularly hard to root, I don't know that rooting hormone would make a difference.

Good luck!!! :)

If you keep all other nearby basils flower-free and only let the Red Opal bloom, then you MIGHT get seed that will set true. You will need to let all that seed ripen, and plant every one, and then cut-off all babies that don't show this desired trait. IF you get any, you only let those grow that are what you want; then, you do the same all over again with those plants... except you can let them cross-pollinate. You do this until the vast majority of the seed sprouts true.

It would seem, that IF you could get any cuttings to root and grow, you could also use them as cross-pollinators. ??

Good luck.

Thank you everyone for the continued flow of valuable information...this group has been a tremendous help! This is uncharted territory for me, but thanks to you all I think I'm now up to the task and I'm very excited to see what I can accomplish.

After expressing my jealousy just a couple of days ago regarding tri-leaf basil plants, I took a close look at my recently sprouted Greek Miniature Basil seedlings this morning, and discovered that one of them has 3 cotyledons. I was utterly amazed. It appeared to have one cotyledon on one side, and two on the other, but looks as though it might stretch out to be more symmetric.

It's too early yet to know if the true leaves will follow suit, but I imagine I'll know by the weekend. This led me to wonder if this mutation might not be quite so uncommon after all...so hearing that someone else at the HSA had seen such a thing isn't too surprising.

topkat2000, I've seen basil develop roots just by being placed in a vase of water, so I imagine you won't have difficulty rooting your cuttings.

Also, topkat2000, take a look underneath the leaves on the tri-leaf, at the place where the leaves join the stem. You should see little proto-leaves there...the ones that would turn into new branches if you were to pinch the growing tip. Do those, also, seem to have 3 leaves? That should give you a hint about whether the "torsion on the stem" theory holds any weight, though from seeing your pictures, I just don't think it does.

Linda

Leira, very cool to hear about your discovery. As far as the proto-leaves on my tri-leaf, it's hard to say as they are still so very tiny. On all of my other basil seedlings, I have pinched off the third set of leaves (as I have always done in the past) so the plants will branch out as you say and become bushy. However I have not done so with the tri-leaf yet, I am inclined to leave it alone until it's clear what its growth pattern is going to be. Within a week it will be easier to tell how it's developing.

I fed the plants with a dilute liquid seaweed and fish fertilizer for the first time today, so hopefully they might pick up the pace a little. I will let you know how things develop and post some updated pictures soon!

There's a discussion in the Pepper forum about a pepper plant with 3 cotyledons.

They included a link to a research paper regarding sunflowers with 3 cotyledons, and an attempt to breed them, which I've included below.

Much squinting this morning reveals that my Greek Mini Basil seedling is, in fact, producing 3 true leaves on top of its 3 cotyledons.

Here is a link that might be useful: Tri-cotyledonous Sunflowers

Congrats! :)

Great post leira, interesting info. I wonder how many of these plants only have 3 cotyledons, versus how many end up being full 3 lobed plants? As for my 3 lobed Red Rubin (my mistake earlier, it's not a Red Opal, but a Red Rubin)...it's doing very well. It has just begun to produce its 4th full set of 3 leaves (Photo Below). However because its growth has been 100% vertical so far, I cannot determine if the side branches will come in sets of three as well. I have decided to go ahead and pinch it back to promote the branch growth as I've already done with all the other basil plants. I should be able to tell by next week.

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:880641}}

I hope you'll keep us updated on your progress. I feel like you're my forward scout, and I can make some guesses on what will happen on my Greek Mini based on what's happening with your Red Rubin. Mine is still at the first-true-leaves stage.

The paper on the sunflowers said the sunflowers in question only produced 3 leaves for the first 6-7 nodes (which I interpret to mean where the leaves come out from the stalk). So, the sunflowers "grew out of it."

I was chatting with one of my coworkers about this (I work at a bioinformatics company), and she tells me that there tend to be multiple parts of a genome that cause certain things to happen, and that the genome is "self-correcting." So, if a plant is "supposed" to have 2 leaves per node, and it doesn't start out that way, there may be other parts of the genetic structure that get it back on the right track after a bit of growth. Personally I'm hoping (and I'm sure you're hoping, too), that it doesn't play out that way in our basil plants.

The sunflower people also had trouble stabilizing the new strain -- they actually had a drop in the incidence of the trait between generations 2 and 3. I hope we have better luck.

Linda

Hey, topkat2000...send me some email, via the link in my profile. I just had a chat with our plant geneticist here at the office, and I learned some things (though mostly, we had lots of speculation).

I'd like to share with you what I learned, and his suggestions about how to care for our little 3-leafed wonders.

I'm also guessing that you can tell by now if the side branches are also 3-leaved...and I'd love to hear the answer.

Linda

Well, here's the update... My 3-lobed Red Rubin is very healthy. Pinching it back has caused the plant to begin branching out at all 4 active nodes. The little pre-branches that represent where the banches will form are coming in THREES...one at the base of each leaf (3 per node). However, the proto-branches which now consist of little proto-leaves only have TWO little leaves. So each plant node which already has 3 fully formed leaves, is now producing THREE proto-branches, consisting each of TWO proto-leaves. Wish the picture could show this better, but it was hard to get a good shot of this.

Picture below...

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:880642}}

I'm back with an update after a 3-week break. As you will see in the photo below, my 3-leaf plant is now merely a 3-stalk plant with the normal pairs of leaves on every stalk and branch. It seems as though the 3-leaf trait was only carried by the main stem. Once I piched it back, the main stem ceased all vertical growth, but 3 branches grew where it was pinched instead of the normal 2. Those 3 branches have grown into 3 very healthy stalks, but unfortunately do not share the same 3-leaf trait. Oh well.

Disappointed but not discouraged, I decided to try again. I had no idea what the chances were of getting a 3-leaf again, but I figured it was worth a shot. I quickly ordered another packet of the same seeds from the same supplier and germinated them. I'm only 2 days into having some sprouts, but it looks like I may have another 2 or 3 3-leafs coming up! If this is true, it obviously has something to do with this particular strand or batch, because I also germinated a 2nd round of 4 other basil cultivars and not a single one of them has produced a 3-leaf yet...only these Red Rubins.

Now, moving forward. If some of these new sprouts do truly turn out to be 3-leafs, I would love to be able to keep this trait going. I'm definitely not going to pinch the main stem so soon (if at all). What I'm curious about is if there is some way to induce branch growth without pinching and sacrificing the main stem. I'm not implying that the branches would have anymore chances of being 3-leaf branches, but at least I'd still have a 3-leaf main stem and a plant with some branches on it. Thoughts?

Photos of 3-stalk below.

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:880643}}

Aww... Well, best of luck on the new ones!

Sure is a pretty plant!

Hi there! webcat5 just put me onto you regarding your Trifoliar experience. I've had a similar ordeal, although not purposefully as I didn't plant the seed myself. I happened to find a seedling, which I've since been informed resembles a marijuana plant, with 3 seed leaves and three first new leaves in a rather neat and organised arrangement around the stem!!! Here is the photo:

I have had multiple (5) basil plants come up as odditys before in previous growings 1 true 3 leafed 3 main-stemed basil plant (cant remember which strain either cinnamon or thai)unfortunitly i really didnt know much about basil at the time and its growing habbits other than just thinking it was somewhat rare i really didnt think about it too much.I also had one opal basil start off with 4 leafs 3 regular sized and one very undersized leaf and it continued to send 4 leafs untill it had to been its 4th set of leafs then went back to 3 leafs untill it died shortly after a one week vacation when it dried out.Besides that ive had 3 others with three leafs all of which were either my cinnamon or Thai seedlings its hard for me to tell the differance when seedlings.The one thing i have noticed about the three leafed basil plants are they seem to be a little touchy (most of mine(3)died young 1 from a transplant).Well i didnt really know what i was doing and i still only have a good clue how to make them happy but if you wanted to know anything e-mail me. Oh and now that i know this is actually a little more rare than i thought i think ill check my basil beds to see if there are any in my last few batches.

Hey all! I just stumbled across this page looking for others who might know something about my odd basil plant and I have! I also have grown a tri-leaf basil plant this summer. It's a dolly basil I beleive, but it may be Genovese. I've been cultivating basil for a while now and I was very excited to see this pop up.

Hi! This happened to me as well! I have sown Ocimum basilicum around a month ago for culinary purposes. One of them turnd out to be a triple, just like yours, but the regular green kind.