Your buddy is adorable! And I love the paint-can idea! Might have to find a place to incorporate it.

...btw, the flowers ARE weird. Never seen that before!

I had this happen with one of my Maui Buttercups last year....and I too LOVE the paint can idea.

I have a Sum And Substance that has a couple of fasciated scapes and on one of them I noticed this evening that the pedicels on a couple of flowers are abnormally long and one of them is coming straight off the scape without a leafy bract and the flower must be quite heavy because I can see the scape tearing open at that point. I'll make a point of taking some shots of it tomorrow and post those, under a new topic. This has sure been the year for abnormal flowers, scapes and leafy bracts in a fairly large number of Hosta in my yard. It apparently has to do with the temperature extremes in late winter when the meristem was developing. Unusually high seasonal daytime temperatures followed by very cold night time temps can play havoc with the the developing scapes and flowers.

Pieter

I see a couple of those every year. Something stopped or stunted the development of the scape.

Pieter- Do the meristems develop in late winter???? I thought they were dormant and just sitting there, not doing anything.

-Babka

I like the ladder! I have some hosta that are doing the same thing with the blooms and wondered if the plentiful rain in the spring could have caused this?

Babka, there was an interesting exchange on Hostapix at he beginning of the month with a lot of scientific information coming from George Schmid. Unfortunately I seem to have misplaced parts of the exchange somehow, so I cannot quote, but I got the distinct impression that extreme temperature fluctuations when they're coming out of dormancy affects some aspects of meristem development, particularly as it relates to scape and flower matters. I'll do some digging and see if I can find it... and I think I found it, it came in the form of a Word document... which I will quote in its entirety here:

Fasciation 2009 by W. George Schmid

The ability of monocots (and other plants) to initiate organs is provided by stem cells called meristems. During normal growing conditions, he balance between stem cell proliferation and organ initiation is regulated to provide normal growth patterns. This ensures that organs are initiated in inherited geometric patterns, i.e. flowering stems, raceme arrangement, flowers, a.s.o. This growing process is highly dynamic and involves the reiterative initiation of new primordia (the earliest stage of embryonic development) from groups of stem cells called meristematic cells. Leaves and the axillary meristems that generate scapes, branches, and flowers are initiated in regular patterns from the shoot apical meristem. This meristem has the ability to regulate size during development by balancing cell proliferation with the incorporation of cells into new primordia. This results in stereotypical pattern of organ initiation throughout the plantÂs development. Thus, the shoot apical meristem controls the function and patterning of the shoot.
Mutant cells in the shoot apical meristem can cause meristem enlargement, which in extreme cases leads to fasciation. The term fasciation comes from the Latin fascis, meaning bundle, and describes a condition, which causes scape bundling (united growth) form resulting from overproliferative growth. I remember from my biology class of long ago, that fasciation was one of Mendel's 14 heritable characters in peas. It has also been studied in maize, because fasciated Maize phenotypes have significantly increased crop yields.

The causative of fasciation can be natural or artificial agents. It may follow disturbance of shoot apical meristem growth by insects, mites, fungi, and other initiators. According to published papers, the agents cause hormone imbalance in the plant. Spontaneous fasciation has also been reported.

Two types of fasciation can occur:
1) Genetic Fasciation and 2) Physiological Fasciation

1) Genetic Fasciation:

Although included by Mendel as inheritable, many fasciations are not inheritable. A well know inheritable example is Celosia argentea var. cristata (cockscomb celosia). In Hosta, it does not appear to be inheritable, but seems to be caused by environmental factors (see under Physiological Fasciation).

2) Physiological Fasciation:
Natural Environmental Factors:
Attack by Insect on meristem growth tissues can produce fasciation.
Seasonal Influences. Time of planting or replanting may influence the degree of fasciation (also see temperature).
Temperature. Low temperature followed by high temperature and the reverse can result in fasciation. This applies particularly to all high seasonal temperature variations early in the season

Zinc Mineral Deficiencies are known to cause fasciation.
Artificial (Applied) Factors

Interruption of the shoot apical meristem growth causes fasciation as well as all kinds of abnormalities.

Radiation Exposure by ionizing X-ray or Gamma rays can cause fasciation.

Water Shortage under drought conditions prior to flowering followed by heavy watering and high nutrient levels can produce fasciation.

Daylength Manipulation. Increasing or decreasing the photoperiod can induce fasciation.

Chemical Application of growth regulators, herbicides, and polyploidizing agents can induce fasciation, particularly and many other abnormalities, including distortions and fusion of organs.

High nitrogen levels can induce fasciation.

Pieter

Thanks for finding that, Pieter! I am not able to control the Genetic Fasciation, but when I read the list under Physiological Fasciation that includes everything from water and daylight to fertilizer and insects, I find it amazing that most of my hostas ever flower normally.

I was going to guess that there are more weird things showing up on some hostas because of all the tc-ing going on, but from the list you provided, just about anything can cause these anomalies.

So I think I'll just enjoy the unusual formations rather than worry too much about them.

Keanaz5a- Thanks for the original post. Guess you won't have to cut off those annoying flower scapes whey they dry up...

-Babka