WNTS, ENTS, I saw this report on a California scrub oak ( Quercus palmeri) that might be of interest to all of you:
In California, a Scrub Oak Is an Old Pro at Cloning By HENRY FOUNTAIN Published: January 4, 2010 In Southern California, a place where most everything is new, botanists have discovered something very old: a scrub oak that has been cloning itself for at least 13,000 years. The oak, a low thicket of about 70 stem clusters that covers 2,000 square feet in a gulch in the Jurupa Hills of Riverside County, cannot reproduce by sexual means. Instead it reproduces vegetatively, after a fire, with new sprouts growing from the base of burned stems. That means all the plant tissue is genetically identical. Continued http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/05/science/05clone.html?ref=science Ed Frank http://nature-web-network.blogspot.com/ http://primalforests.ning.com/ http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?ref=profile&id=709156957
