An observation to add about flowering would be that within populations, all plants flower at different times. Generally when I begin work on an area the plants are in all flowering stages: from not blooming to past blooming. This is an important phenomenon because it will limit the amount of gene flow within populations as plants that are not blooming cannot cross with those that are. A property like this would manifest itself in higher genetic variation at the within population level due to the mating of subgroups and variability for the trait in geographically close groups (See previous post).
Another physical difference is in plant height and habit. Again, quite variable when looking at different environments but the traits are conserved within populations, unlike flower color and blooming time. I have not seen any large differences within populations, but comparing regions tells a different story. Below are representative plant habits from three populations: southwestern AR (upper), Florida panhandle (middle), and eastern Texas (bottom).
The plants in southwestern Arkansas along the Oklahoma border were the largest in size, with mature plants easily reaching 10 feet in height. The Texas plants were unique as mature plants were short, only reaching about 4 feet at maturity and tended to sucker a lot. The Florida panhandle populations were the most morphologically distinct, having notably smaller and stiffer leaves on compact plants. A first suspicion is that some of these differences are products of the environments the plants have been growing in:
Now to link this all together, you might be wondering how these plants could possibly look so different over these environments. Part of it could be environmental, where the weather in a given year or set of years might influence plant flowering or leaf shape. The best example would be fire: plants frequently will be shorter and more likely to sucker. But what if we removed the environmental differences? By growing the cuttings of these plants I've been harvesting in a common environment (ie. greenhouse), we can accurately document these morphological features without the confounding factors of weather, day length, or fire present in the wild. If these differences are still present, genetics likely plays a role and we can refine our study with tools previously described. We then blend the worlds of classical botany with modern science. Without the new technology our understanding will never be as thorough but, without the old knowledge, our understanding will never be guided into the right places.
Some people like sunsets or sunrises, but I've always been a zenith guy. The sun and blue sky at these latitudes are intense! Ocala NF. |