Plastid inheritance in Job's tears, Coix lacryma-jobi L

The yellow striping in Job's tears showed nonchromosomal maternal inheritance of the trait producing green, yellow lethal and striped seedlings in the offspring in widely different ratios whenever the striped plant was used as female parent.Plastids in yellow regions of the striped plant were of various sizes and colours ranging from normal to minute size and light yellow or pale green to transparent ones. They were even absent in some cells. The plastids in the leaves of the yellow lethals were usually pale green.While the histological studies indicate the probability that the genetic determinants affecting plastids were in the cytoplasm, the possibility that all the abnormal plastid types could be different expressions of the same original mutation that occurred in the plastids, together with the extensive data on the breeding behaviour of the striped plant, is strongly in favour of the concepts of plastid mutation and autonomy.