There has, over the past several years, been a great deal of interest and discussion about remontant flowering (repeat flowering on current season's growth) driven primarily by the introduction of the remontant flowering Hydrangea macrophylla 'Bailmer', Endless Summer hydrangea. Although Endless Summer hydrangea and other remontant flowering H. macrophylla have certainly energized hydrangea interest, the genetic underpinnings of remontant flowering remains unknown The elucidation of these responsiblegenetic mechanisms would certainly help to facilitate the introduction of the remontant flowering trait into improved cultivars A traditional genetic approach could be used; however, this approach is impractical because of the long generation time of H.macrophylla and the fact that floral induction is known to be under the control of many genes. The basic pathway and genetic mechanisms involved in floral induction have been revealed in model plants such as Arabidopsis thaliana, and this knowledge canbe used to develop a reasonable hypothesis for the variation in floral induction among H. macrophylla.
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