Examining the Origins of Flowering Plants

Category(-ies): Botanical Garden News , In the Media

Excerpted from this Botany Photo of the Day:

“...[A] team of [UBC BGCPR-led] researchers has a paper being published in the March 15, 2007 edition of Nature, entitled “Hydatellaceae identified as a new branch near the base of the angiosperm phylogenetic tree”. These dwarf aquatic plants found in Australia, New Zealand and India were once thought to be in the order of plants that included the grasses, sedges, bromeliads and rushes (the Poales). Through an incongruous result noted when studying the relationships between early flowering plants, the UBC researchers asked one of the most important questions in science (“Why?”) and decided to investigate further. What they discovered was that the Hydatellaceae are a previously unrecognized ancient lineage of flowering plants – so ancient that they predate the “big split” between the monocots and dicots (or ex-dicots, as is now recognized) in the evolution of flowering plants, and are instead more closely related to the Nymphaeaceae, or water lilies. As Sean states in the UBC press release, ‘For botanists, this is like finding something you thought was a lizard is actually a living dinosaur.’”

Follow news coverage of this story, see more photographs and learn more on UBC Botanical Garden's page dedicated to the Hydatellaceae. News items will be updated on this page as links are made available.

Posted by Daniel Mosquin at 1:02 PM on March 14, 2007

Student Summer Jobs (2007)

Category(-ies): 2007 Archives

Updated April 6, 2007: please note that applications are no longer being accepted.

Several summer student positions are available for the summer of 2007.

Students are hired for available summer positions at the UBC Botanical Garden and Centre for Plant Research based on the following criteria:

• employment is limited to returning first, second and third year students enrolled in a recognized Agriculture, Botany, Horticulture or Plant Biology program at UBC or another university/college, and to returning UBC Masters of Landscape Architecture students
• preference will be given to UBC students, and to students who have not had previous summer employment at the UBC Botanical Garden and Centre for Plant Research
• the term of employment is May 14 to August 17, 2007

Please apply directly with resume and cover letter by closing date (April 5, 2007) to:

Ingrid Hoff
c/o UBC Botanical Garden and Centre for Plant Research
6804 Southwest Marine Drive
Vancouver, British Columbia
V6T 1Z4

Please mark clearly on the envelope: “Summer Student Job Application”

Posted by Daniel Mosquin at 1:45 PM on March 1, 2007