All organisms are at least a little “alternamorphic”: their form depends on the environment they grew in. A plant may be bigger under optimal conditions, smaller or even stunted under poor ones. A single cell may be bigger after a meal. A human may be darker or lighter depending on degree of sun exposure. Perhaps more interestingly, some kinds of grasshoppers, when crowded, change strikingly in appearance, becoming…locusts which gather in huge, hungry, migrating clowds, leaving devastated farmland in their paths. These are the locusts swarms of biblical fame.
If properly endowed by natural evolution or genetic engineering, plants could turn the concept of alternamorphism to their advantage in many interesting ways. For example, consider the humble corn (zea mays) plant. It is a staple of the world food supply but is not particularly easy to grow successfully in one’s garden, as many an inexperienced gardener can attest. Now imagine a new kind of corn plant that, after bearing its ear of corn, alternamorphically either dies or sinks a taproot that lasts the winter and then, in its second spring, sends up a new shoot that grows more slowly than before, but more sturdily. That grows, in fact, without producing any ear of corn that year but rather is built to last the following winter, so that it can build on that growth with further development in its third spring — eventually turning into a large corn tree that produces dozens of ears every year, and with far less work than farming an equivalently productive corn patch.
But what would determine which alternative the corn plant chooses, dying off as happens now, or beginning the process of turning into a corn tree? A reasonable genetic code for this would be to opt for the tree strategy if the ear is destroyed early in its development or fails to develop properly for whatever reason. In that case it makes sense for the corn plant to devote its energy to something else, such as trying to grow into a tree. Indeed, any excess of vitality would be a good reason to pursue the tree strategy, even if the initial ear is growing well. Perhaps the corn plant is simply experiencing highly favorable growth conditions and has the werewithal to both produce an ear, and grow the required large taproot. Similarly, any annual crop or other plant could potentially alternamorphically become a tree. Farmers and gardeners would be delighted. On the other hand, hundred foot ragweed trees would be bad news for many an allergy sufferer. Alternamorphic trees are just a start. The reader may enjoy dreaming up other kinds of alternamorphisms. In a number of years it may be possible to actually create these in a do-it-yourself basement bio lab.
