Emily Kwong
👤 SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
And here with us is the glorious Elsa Cheng.
Hi, hi, hi.
And we have another story about a rapidly evolving wildflower.
All that on this episode of Short Wave, the science podcast from NPR.
Okay, Elsa, which story do you want to start with?
Ooh, well, I want to start with the wildflowers.
Lovely.
Good choice.
Yes, allow me to introduce you to the scarlet monkeyflower.
That is a plant with vibrant red petals whose flowers kind of look like a grinning monkey.
Plant biologist Daniel Anstett at Cornell University said that without water, these flowers will die in a few days.
However, several wild populations in California and Oregon survived this intense mega drought.
This wildflower mystery is the focus of a new paper in the journal Science.
Yeah, the scientists found that three of the populations that recovered the best adapted their stomata to open less.
Stomata?
Yeah, so they could conserve more water.
Stomata, yeah, that's basically like a plant's pores.