Braving the Jungle for a Flower
Few of us would risk snake bite, malaria, the jungle and stinging nettles to find a flower. But John R. Clark is about to do just that. He is about to travel half-way around the world to find gesneriads.
The African violet family is very popular among houseplants, with its lipstick-like red colour.
Clark is not alone in his hunt flowers, there are many plant explorers out there and they study plants in order to better understand the relationships of living things and evolution.
This flower family is very diverse and is a perfect sample for understanding the diversification of organisms in the process of evolution. It evolved about 50 million years ago and only later spread to islands like Fiji, Guadalcanal, Hawaii, and the Solomons.
Clark is going to use modern molecular science and computer modelling to better understand how these flowers spread from island to island over time…
[Via: Herald Tribune]
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