Had anyone seen avocado growth like this?

[Ado]

I have this avocado seedling growing and never had any grow like this. It looks odd.

[sc4001992]

Wow, that is neat. What is the growing right at the seed?
Is it a flower or some yellow leaf?

Very interesting seedling, I have never seen anything like that on my avocado seedlings. Do you know what avocado variety it was.

[drymifolia]

I've seen this listed somewhere as a genetic defect, but I can't find the source again. Sometimes it forms only those seed-like/cauliflower growths, and sometimes it also forms normal leaves. Yours looks like the latter, so it will probably just stop growing those nodules as it gets bigger. Here's another one that came up when I was trying (and failing) to find the more official explanation:
https://www.reddit.com/r/whatsthisplant/comments/4fsyry/ive_got_these_weird_white_fleshy_leaves_on_my/

[drymifolia]

Aha! Found the old paper (from the CAS Yearbook, 1956), it didn't actually conclude much other than it's not a symptom of sunblotch viroid, and to note that plants often outgrow this unusual form of albinism (so not true genetic albinism):
https://www.avocadosource.com/cas_yearbooks/cas_40_1956/cas_1956_pg_156-164.pdf

[Ado]

Thanks for the info. It's a hass seedling. I thought it looked abnormal.

[sc4001992]

Very unusual growth. I know about the albino seedlings, I had those, they will either die off or turn back to normal green Leafs. But this weird growth is something I never saw on any seedlings before. Maybe they are results of fruits that had irradiation treated for importing here.

[Ado]

If I remember correctly it's from a home grown avocado in the south bay. But I also buy some at Trader Joe's so there is a chance i mixed up seeds. I'm horrible at keeping track. I say to myself I'll remember and never do. I'm slowly learning to label stuff.

[drymifolia]

Very unusual growth. I know about the albino seedlings, I had those, they will either die off or turn back to normal green Leafs. But this weird growth is something I never saw on any seedlings before. Maybe they are results of fruits that had irradiation treated for importing here.

If you read that paper, they describe and include photos of this exact fleshy growth, which they call a type of albinism, even though I agree that it's not true albinism.

They concluded that it most often occurred in seeds from fruit that had been picked early, so it may be something that goes wrong in embryo development?

Here's how they describe this type of albinism:

In some instances, the terminal [bud?] consisted of modified fleshy, whitish leaves which developed after a period of more normal stem elongation.

Less severely affected seedlings displayed varying degrees of albinism and malformation. Stem elongation was not retarded, but the first formed leaves were fleshy and colorless. Later, developing leaves progressively became less albino and were often normal in color and size by the time the seedlings had attained a height of twelve inches. After recovery, no plants were observed to revert to the albino condition.

[sc4001992]

yup, your correct, it does say that.