Molecular Natural History is a series of posts highlighting what genetic data has revealed about some of my favorite organisms. There’s no rhyme or reason to what species I’ll feature for this, beyond the fact that they’ve made me stop and look closer when I see them along a trail or in my neighborhood. If you’d like to write about the molecular natural history of a favorite taxon, why not pitch a guest post?
Choosing a favorite wildflower is a challenge for anyone with a little depth of botanical experience, but if I had to pick one I appreciate purely for its decorative presence on the landscape, it would probably be a lupine.
Genus Lupinus includes hundreds of species across the globe, with centers of diversity in the mountain ranges that run down the western spines of North and South America. In spring and summer, you don’t need to hike far into the Rockies or the Cascades or the Sierras before you’ll find their racemes of blue-and-white or yellow or pink flowers marking the edge of the trail. In much of Western North America, you can see multiple species in a few miles of hiking.
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