Leafy

For the American religious leader, see Leafy Anderson. For the Barmy Army co-founder, see Paul Burnham.

LEAFY (abbreviated LFY) is a plant gene that causes groups of undifferentiated cells called meristems to develop into flowers instead of leaves with associated shoots.

LEAFY is involved in floral meristem identity. LEAFY, which encodes a plant-specific transcription factor, is found in all land plants and one of its exons have been used extensively in phylogenetic work on spermatophytes. When the gene is overexpressed, the plant is less sensitive to environmental signals and flowers earlier.