Yeah, you’re right. I’m probably confusing the shit out of people.
Sometimes people see three leaves at each node and say polyploid, and I never understood where the mixup began, and what, if anything, whorled phylotaxy had to do with extra chromosomes.
The paper I was reading mentioned whorled phylotaxy as one of the more common results of successful colchicine testing, and a dim little, half-lit lightbulb went off in my head.