(before anyone asks: yes this pot does drain! It has holes on the bottom. I know that because I drilled them in myself)
I cut this one from a very long golden that my aunt had laying around with almost no leaves, together with like 20 other props. Every single other one has the classic golden variegation. Sometimes with a few white sported leaves in between but never with stable mutations.
Then there is this one. Her leaves are extremely small, almost ridiculously so. She had the exact same soil and light/water conditions as the rest and didn’t show any issues during the rooting period either.
She was not in direct sunlight, neither was she in full shade. I mean it when I say they all had the same exact conditions.
I don’t know how well the colours are visible in this but there is barely any Creme or yellow visible at all aside from in the stem and instead it marbles in 2 different shades of green.
Also you can see in the background that some of her leaves are deformed which is why at first I thought it was either a nutrition or pest issue but have since ruled out both.
I don’t know why she is marbled like that and why she is so small. What the hell happened here?
by a_girl_in_the_woods
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https://preview.redd.it/hf2w359jweyf1.jpeg?width=1991&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1d229efe07f3a33644a7f514e7b3ff188a3b9819
Adding for context: the stem already shows a depletion in chlorophyll transport which makes me think this might be a chimera mutation in the lowest node meristem. L2 meristem layer maybe?
Took a look at the roots and they seem fine. No water or pest damage and healthy subroots with intact root hairs.
She seems highly unstable in every way. The internodes are long in some places, very short in others. Light and water was consistent though. And again, no other plant shows those symptoms.
The question is now if I can make this stable by very precise chopping and propping…. There’s definitely still golden DNA in there and I don’t want it reverting.