From: ted.held at us.henkel.com (ted.held at us.henkel.com) on 2008.07.29 at 16:34:04(18286)
Peter and Sin Yeng,
Not only are your comments food for thought, they are astonishing. You are
hinting that aroids are as old as any flowering plants, and you also
believe that they are at least as old as the earliest surviving angiosperm
fossils.
Of course, we all know that if you want to be a fossil it helps to have
hard, durable parts that can be preserved long enough to be covered in
sediment and whatnot. I know from my own plants that preservation of
deceased material in warm, humid environments for more than even a couple
of hours is problematic. This means that the existential history of many
aroids and other life forms can have proceeded along for eons under the
fossil radar. Is this a way of teasing out some of the secret history of
the living world?
I am intrigued by your methodology. This thread also meshes with our other
recent discussion of the threatened-species nature of taxonomists, since
you seem to rely on inferences based on traditional taxonomy. Maybe if
young potential botanists think that there's more to it than pressing and
cataloging dry old plant parts they would more readily sign up. Also,
funding is nine parts show biz, so conjectures like this might stir up a
few bucks for deserving researchers.
Please keep me (us) updated on your thinking.
Ted.
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