Adopt-a-Species Assignment 3
TO: Mr. Miboss,
Director
Plantiful Beauty, where we solve your decorating frustrations with natural beauty!
FROM: Rosa Lovely
SUBJECT: Regarding the Colorado Butterfly Plant
Dear Sir:
Hope your vacation in Acapulco with your family went well. It rained here the entire time you were gone. I was writing in regard to your question about the lucrativeness of the Colorado Butterfly Plant. What I discovered was astounding!
Here is the formal classification of the plant:
Kingdom: Plantae
Phylum: Anthophyta
Class: Dicotyledoneae
Order: Myrtales
Family: Onagraceae
Genus: Guara
Species: neomexicana var. coloradensis
The Colorado Butterfly plant is a quite lovely flowering herb that is mainly suffering from over-grazing, accidental herbicide, and urbanization that is depleting the plant's natural habitat. However, the plant has a few very interesting adaptations that helps it survive.
First, the plant is very hardy. The seeds sprout in practically all environments, as long as they are kept moderately moist. Tests have shown that the seeds sprout even after lying dormant for nine months! This is significant because this means that the plants can grow in very different environments.
Second, this particular species of Guara neomexicana has smaller seed pods than its cousin species that grows in the New Mexico area. This, I assume, either has to do with temperature and season length differences (i.e. it gets colder much earlier in Wyoming than it does in New Mexico, making the turnover for seeds much shorter in the coloradensis variation of neomexicana) or with the way that they are pollinated; the Wyoming version is pollinated mostly by moths at dusk and after dark.
Third, the plants rosettes have adapted very specifically to the chance of grazing. While the adult plant stands very tall (sometimes more than three feet!), the rosettes (a step in the seedling's life cycle) grow very low to the ground, which helps prevent grazing. This helps the plant keep thriving, even if the fields where they grow are subject to frequent grazing.
I really believe that the best bet for PB to make money from the Colorado Butterfly Plant is to market it in our Perennial Flowering Plant line. Because of the first adaptation I mentioned, it is very easy to grow away from it's original habitat as long as it is kept moderately moist. If we were to selectively breed these plants to further enhance this trait of hardiness it could become even easier to grow outside of it's natural habitat.
To selectively breed it, first, we would need to determine which plants were the most hardy - the oldest plants, the ones that have lasted the longest despite the challenges that this plant faces in it's habitat. Then, these plants would need to be cultivated together for a while in a greenhouse to produce offspring that have this trait. Because of the relative simplicity of the plants reproduction cycle, it is not terribly difficult to cross-pollinate them.
The basic idea of cross-pollination is this: by crossing two plants that are relatively hardy, the chances of creating a plant that is even more hardy is better than just crossing two plants at random. Cross-pollination can be done in a lab; I do not know the exact details of the process, but I have written to Iman Evergreen, our friend at "All About Plants," to see what light he can shed on the subject. I expect to hear from him later this week. I'm sure he will tell us everything we need to learn about cross-pollinating to begin our experiment.
Some consequences could arise, however, if we interfere with the production of this plant. Even if we were to make the plant more hardy, probably by "domesticating" it as a houseplant, these traits could be lost. After all, a plant in an avid (or even semi-interested) gardener's house will likely not face a very strenuous environment. Then, for whatever reason, if this new, more domestic species of the plant was introduced back into the wild or neglected in the home, it would very likely not be able to survive.
Luckily, however, there aren't many ethical problems with manipulating plants genetically. The only problem we may have is since the plant is endangered, there may be some resistance to using the natural population to begin our testing. This has a flip-side, though, because the general population will be attracted to growing an "endangered species" in their home.
Thank you,
Rosa Lovely
Plant Researcher I
Reference:
Nature Serve Explorer. Gaura neomexicana ssp. coloradensis. copyright 2006. Accessed 22 April 2007.
Director
Plantiful Beauty, where we solve your decorating frustrations with natural beauty!
FROM: Rosa Lovely
SUBJECT: Regarding the Colorado Butterfly Plant
Dear Sir:
Hope your vacation in Acapulco with your family went well. It rained here the entire time you were gone. I was writing in regard to your question about the lucrativeness of the Colorado Butterfly Plant. What I discovered was astounding!
Here is the formal classification of the plant:
Kingdom: Plantae
Phylum: Anthophyta
Class: Dicotyledoneae
Order: Myrtales
Family: Onagraceae
Genus: Guara
Species: neomexicana var. coloradensis
The Colorado Butterfly plant is a quite lovely flowering herb that is mainly suffering from over-grazing, accidental herbicide, and urbanization that is depleting the plant's natural habitat. However, the plant has a few very interesting adaptations that helps it survive.
First, the plant is very hardy. The seeds sprout in practically all environments, as long as they are kept moderately moist. Tests have shown that the seeds sprout even after lying dormant for nine months! This is significant because this means that the plants can grow in very different environments.
Second, this particular species of Guara neomexicana has smaller seed pods than its cousin species that grows in the New Mexico area. This, I assume, either has to do with temperature and season length differences (i.e. it gets colder much earlier in Wyoming than it does in New Mexico, making the turnover for seeds much shorter in the coloradensis variation of neomexicana) or with the way that they are pollinated; the Wyoming version is pollinated mostly by moths at dusk and after dark.
Third, the plants rosettes have adapted very specifically to the chance of grazing. While the adult plant stands very tall (sometimes more than three feet!), the rosettes (a step in the seedling's life cycle) grow very low to the ground, which helps prevent grazing. This helps the plant keep thriving, even if the fields where they grow are subject to frequent grazing.
I really believe that the best bet for PB to make money from the Colorado Butterfly Plant is to market it in our Perennial Flowering Plant line. Because of the first adaptation I mentioned, it is very easy to grow away from it's original habitat as long as it is kept moderately moist. If we were to selectively breed these plants to further enhance this trait of hardiness it could become even easier to grow outside of it's natural habitat.
To selectively breed it, first, we would need to determine which plants were the most hardy - the oldest plants, the ones that have lasted the longest despite the challenges that this plant faces in it's habitat. Then, these plants would need to be cultivated together for a while in a greenhouse to produce offspring that have this trait. Because of the relative simplicity of the plants reproduction cycle, it is not terribly difficult to cross-pollinate them.
The basic idea of cross-pollination is this: by crossing two plants that are relatively hardy, the chances of creating a plant that is even more hardy is better than just crossing two plants at random. Cross-pollination can be done in a lab; I do not know the exact details of the process, but I have written to Iman Evergreen, our friend at "All About Plants," to see what light he can shed on the subject. I expect to hear from him later this week. I'm sure he will tell us everything we need to learn about cross-pollinating to begin our experiment.
Some consequences could arise, however, if we interfere with the production of this plant. Even if we were to make the plant more hardy, probably by "domesticating" it as a houseplant, these traits could be lost. After all, a plant in an avid (or even semi-interested) gardener's house will likely not face a very strenuous environment. Then, for whatever reason, if this new, more domestic species of the plant was introduced back into the wild or neglected in the home, it would very likely not be able to survive.
Luckily, however, there aren't many ethical problems with manipulating plants genetically. The only problem we may have is since the plant is endangered, there may be some resistance to using the natural population to begin our testing. This has a flip-side, though, because the general population will be attracted to growing an "endangered species" in their home.
Thank you,
Rosa Lovely
Plant Researcher I
Reference:
Nature Serve Explorer. Gaura neomexicana ssp. coloradensis. copyright 2006. Accessed 22 April 2007.
posted by Princess Melissa at
7:37 PM
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