Arabidopsis thaliana, the mouse of plant biology research

Hey planty plant, ready to ✨photosynthesize✨?

In this article:
🌱 Botanic Spotlight: Arabidopsis thaliana
🌱 Drought-resistant clover lawns (could lower your water bill)
🌱 U.S. entities can now lease federally owned lands for restoration
🌱 One transgenic plant with the air purifying capacity of 20 plants
🌱 South African pine tree decay solved - it was a fungus

Botanic Spotlight

Arabidopsis thaliana is the mouse of plant biology because of its short (6 week) life cycle, simplified genome (diploid with 27,000 genes across 5 chromosomes), and ease of growing. It’s the first plant to have its genome sequenced. Researchers continue to use this plant to understand the plant kingdom such as stress response, disease immunity, and gene regulatory networks. The data obtained from this plant is often inferred to other plants as a basis to begin research.

Common Names: thale cress, mouse-ear cress, arabidopsis
Native to Eurasia and Northern Africa.

Phylogeny
Order: Brassicales | mustard oil (glucosinolate) production
Family: Brassicaceae | mustard/cabbage family
Genus: Arabidopsis
Species: Thaliana

Morphology _{(Al-Shehbaz and O’Kane, 2002)}
Basal Leaves
Attachment | petiolate
Leaf blade | obovate, spatulate, ovate, or elliptic
Leaf margin | entire, repand, serrulate, or dentate
Leaf apex | obtuse

Stem Leaves
Attachment | subsessile or sessile
Leaf blade | lanceolate, linear, oblong, or ellipitic
Leaf margin | entire or dentate (uncommon)
Leaf apex | acute to obtuse

Flowers
Tetramerous perfect (male and female parts present) and complete (all four whorls present).

Johnnes Thal (1542-1583) was the physician / botanist that first described A. thaliana written in Syvla Hercynia published in 1588.

Gardening

Grass lawns can be labor and resource intensive resulting in constant maintenance and a higher water bill. Might be time for a switch! Clover can be a good option however, consider this, it doesn’t have to be a switch to clover. What about native ground cover plants in your area?

Conservation

U.S. entities can now lease federally owned lands for restoration! But of course, not without backlash.

AgBiotech

One plant with the air purification properties of 20 plants and it’s a pothos, Epipremnum aureum :). French startup, Neoplants, is creeping closer to the launch of their transgenic plant aimed to be more efficient at removing harmful volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from the air. Can’t wait to do a botanic spotlight on this one.

Plant Disease

Mystery on the 1970s-1980s decay of pine trees in South Africa has been solved! The culprit? Rhizina undulata, the “coffee fire fungus,” known to cause disease in Europe. It gets its name due to the intense heat cause by campfires in forests that can activate their dormant spores. Yet, the mystery still remains of how the spores were activated in Western Cape plantations without any reported fires.

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