Plant Taxonomy

Prof Mark Chase
Victoria Hall
07 Apr 2022 8:00pm - 9:00pm
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This Science Talk will take place in the Victoria Hall

Professor Mark Chase from Kew Gardens is an acknowledged expert on the classification of plants and, in his presentation, will explain how modern methods have influenced historic findings.

Plant taxonomy has undergone a major transition in the past 25 years as the DNA revolution produced genetic data that could replace the traditional sources of taxonomic information, morphology/anatomy and biochemistry. Fortunately, these new data, which have been accumulating ever more rapidly in recent years, have not completely undone all that went before, and somewhere around 80% of the plant families recognised on morphological bases are supported by the new genetic data. What has sustained more revolutionary change is our view of how plants have evolved and when. For example, the long-contentious families of carnivorous plants have been placed near their more standard relatives with more certainty, and long-established families like the orchids have been confirmed and found their place in the bigger evolutionary picture. Orchids are now known to have been evolved in the late Cretaceous and survived the cataclysm that ended the reign of the dinosaurs.

Please book by 1pm on the day of the event.
Free to all.