'More beautiful than any before described...' Verticordia grandis, Scarlet Featherflower, Western Australian Botanical Garden, Perth, Australia
'The Perth Gazette' of January 10, 1851 published a letter from James Drummond - indefatigable botanist and naturalist of Western Australia. He'd composed it under some duress on a journey from Dundaragan to Champion Bay and onwards to the lead mine on the Murchison River (1849-1850) 'but I have not as yet got a sheltered spot to write in'.
Drummond's enthusiasm is contagious. He has for the first time seen 'the large scarlet verticordia' which 'is in my opinion the most beautiful of Australian plants'; suitably it later received the specific name: 'grandis'. After describing its growing habits, Drummond continues: 'even de savage inhabitants of the country, cannibals as they are, admire this plant; on one of the days we were travelling from the Irwin to the Greenough, the natives had intelligence of our approach and twenty or thirty of the young men dressed in their best style, with grease and wilgi and their heads ornamemted with the flowers of this splendid plant, came to meet us in a friendly manner'. Drummond, incidentally, had had a terrible run-in caused according to him by the natives earlier in 1845, which had cost the lives of his son Johnston, also an avid botanist, and a native guide called Kabinger: see my posting of July 18, 2010: www.flickr.com/photos/87453322@N00/4804040139/.
Before Drummond's discovery of this Scarlet Featherflower, Augustin Pyramus de Candolle (1778-1841) had in 1828 named the genus of that plant 'Verticordia', 'Heart-turner'. And indeed the brightness of our 'grandis' does turn the heart!
More than merely beautiful, Verticordia grandis recently has played an important role in genetic engineering. It's a member of the myrtle family to which also belong economically important plants such as the clove and the guava. They are all prone to a debilitating plant condition called hairy-root disease, caused by a soil bacterium, Agrobacterium rhizogenes. In the mid '90s, scientists were able to genetically transform Verticordia grandis so that it no longer has to be susceptible to that bacterium. Thus strides are made forward to the greater economic viability of these myrtles. Possbily insights from this work will also help in the battle against that disease in The Netherlands, where it has been detected in other plants (e.g. cucumber, tomato, aubergine) since about 1999.
'More beautiful than any before described...' Verticordia grandis, Scarlet Featherflower, Western Australian Botanical Garden, Perth, Australia
'The Perth Gazette' of January 10, 1851 published a letter from James Drummond - indefatigable botanist and naturalist of Western Australia. He'd composed it under some duress on a journey from Dundaragan to Champion Bay and onwards to the lead mine on the Murchison River (1849-1850) 'but I have not as yet got a sheltered spot to write in'.
Drummond's enthusiasm is contagious. He has for the first time seen 'the large scarlet verticordia' which 'is in my opinion the most beautiful of Australian plants'; suitably it later received the specific name: 'grandis'. After describing its growing habits, Drummond continues: 'even de savage inhabitants of the country, cannibals as they are, admire this plant; on one of the days we were travelling from the Irwin to the Greenough, the natives had intelligence of our approach and twenty or thirty of the young men dressed in their best style, with grease and wilgi and their heads ornamemted with the flowers of this splendid plant, came to meet us in a friendly manner'. Drummond, incidentally, had had a terrible run-in caused according to him by the natives earlier in 1845, which had cost the lives of his son Johnston, also an avid botanist, and a native guide called Kabinger: see my posting of July 18, 2010: www.flickr.com/photos/87453322@N00/4804040139/.
Before Drummond's discovery of this Scarlet Featherflower, Augustin Pyramus de Candolle (1778-1841) had in 1828 named the genus of that plant 'Verticordia', 'Heart-turner'. And indeed the brightness of our 'grandis' does turn the heart!
More than merely beautiful, Verticordia grandis recently has played an important role in genetic engineering. It's a member of the myrtle family to which also belong economically important plants such as the clove and the guava. They are all prone to a debilitating plant condition called hairy-root disease, caused by a soil bacterium, Agrobacterium rhizogenes. In the mid '90s, scientists were able to genetically transform Verticordia grandis so that it no longer has to be susceptible to that bacterium. Thus strides are made forward to the greater economic viability of these myrtles. Possbily insights from this work will also help in the battle against that disease in The Netherlands, where it has been detected in other plants (e.g. cucumber, tomato, aubergine) since about 1999.