Doubling of flowers — the development of extra petals — is a common mutation, and often beloved by gardeners. Sometimes double forms of flowers become so popular that gardeners hardly recognize the single flowered, wild-type. Wild roses, for example, have just 5 (or, in once case, 4) petals and look totally different than the extra petal flaunting varieties familiar from gardens.
Doubling usually happens when gene expression gets mixed up and bits of cells that were destined to develop into anthers develop into extra petals instead. Sometimes a single mutation makes a dramatic change all in a go, but more often, the path to a double flowered cultivar starts with something like this:
Here we have a flower of Iris xnorrisii (formerly known as x Pardancanda norrisii) with the usual six petals, and three “petaloids” — anthers that are stuck in an ugly transition between anther and petal. This is a seedling in my garden this year, and I’m going to grow out lots of seeds from it — hopefully some of them will get past the petaloid stage to full on extra petals and hey presto, a double flowered variety will be born!
Joseph Tychonievich