AbstractsBiology & Animal Science

Fatuoids, or false wild oats, are aberrant plants which have been found in almost all varieties of the cultivated oats Avena sativa and Avena byzantina. They derive their name from the similarity of their appearance to that of the wild oat Avena fatua. In nearly all cases they originate spontaneously as a form heterozygous for the fatuoid characters, the phenotype of which differs from the normal cultivated oat mainly in the possession of a stronger awn on the first grain and stronger pubescence at the base of the grain. In the next generation these heterozygous forms segregate normal cultivated oats (N), heterozygous fatuoid oats (HF), and homozygous fatuoid oats (F), often in the ratio of lN : 2HF : lF. The homozygous fatuoids have a distinct horse-shoe-shaped articulation ("sucker-mouth") surrounded by a tuft of hairs at the base, and a twisted geniculate awn on the lemma of each grain. These characters make up the so-called fatuoid complex. [...]