Viewing post #649783 by admmad

I have tried to take a photograph of Spindazzle which is showing three scapes within "one" fan (actually three fans, one original and two replacements) but there are two many other fans growing in the clump and obscuring the situation. Perhaps this photo of two scapes within "one" fan (actually two fans, one original and one replacement) might be able to represent both situations.

In the photo L1 is one of the leaves of the original fan and R1 is one of the leaves of the original fan. Those leaves enclose the entire compound fan. S1 is the scape of the original fan. No buds have opened on it yet and it may be a couple of weeks yet before even the first bud opens on that initial scape. L2 and R2 are left and right leaves of the replacement fan that has grown to the right of the initial scape. S2 is the scape that belongs to the replacement fan. The replacement fan developed from an axillary bud found in the corner of the crown probably between the original scape and the last original leaf (an R1 category leaf) on the right of S1. It can be a little difficult to distinguish R2 from R1 category leaves but in this case (and perhaps usually) at least some of the older R1 leaves are shorter but wider than R2 leaves. It is usually easy to distinguish L2 from L1 leaves since the L2 category leaves will be to the right of the S1 scape (but left of the S2 scape). By counting the number of L2 leaves we get an estimate of approximately how many leaves to the right of the S2 scape are R2 leaves - the rest would be R1 leaves. That estimate is the same number of R2 leaves as there are L2 leaves say plus or minus one leaf.