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Another day

Sitting at work, going through some 8000 records in our Scanning Database. When I started working with the API-project (no, not API but API or African Plants Initiative, a truely international project that has now expanded to “Latin American Plants (and Global Types) Initiative(s)”, with more than 100 collaborating herbaria and institutions) we already had [...]

OK, I know…

…that I’m a lousy blog writer… Right now I’m a lousy researcher too. Trying to come back to my small African plants, after a few weeks without them when I tried to get Krypto-S for FBO up working again. But right now I think I can leave it for a while, and do whatever I’m [...]

Drafts

Yesterday I got an e-mail from the Production Editor of Taxon with my contribution to the forthcoming book on the plant family Compositae (Asteraceae). It was a terrible reading! I was invited to give a talk on its nearest relatives on the 2006 years Compositae Conference in Barcelona, and this was thought to form the [...]

Research update

Yesterday I finally finished determining the Geigeria vouchers for the DNA samples sequenced for my new research project! Geigeria of family Compositae is a small genus of some 20+ species, mostly in the deserts of southern Africa. In the next nine months or so, I will try to investigate the evolution of its pappus (modified calyx, [...]

Internet i Afrika

En av de globala skandalerna just nu är (avsaknaden av) internetaccess i Afrika söder om Sahara, rapporterat i senaste numret av Science (6 juni 2008, s. 1261). Till Västafrika går en (1) fiberoptisk kabel, Östafrika får förlita sig på satellitlänk. Vad det gör för möjligheten för de få botanister verksamma i Afrika att koppla upp [...]

En solig torsdagsmorgon

Jag sitter och försöker koncentrera mig på att läsa ett manuskript som jag har fått för review…  Funderar nästan på att ta med den ut i skuggan under en ek men då kommer jag bara att somna… Annars hade det varit perfekt idag, att sitta under en ek, dricka kall saft och reviewa manuskript. Obetalt [...]

Long overdue

I felt very honoured when, in March 2006, I was asked by Alfonso Susanna if I could present an overview of the phylogeny of Asterales for The International Compositae Alliance TICA meeting in Barcelona later the same year. Of course my first — and probably wisest — reaction was to say Thank you very much [...]

Basal uncertainties

One of last years greatest surprises was the removal of Hydatellaceae from Poales to Nymphaeales. It might not sound grand, but since Poales is the group of monocots that the grasses, sedges, rushs (and pineapples!) are a part of, and the Nymphaeales are the water lilies, the magnitude of the transfer of this small family [...]

Finally at travels end

 

Last week a two years journey finally reached its end. It started springtime 2006, with Aberia tristis (i.e., Dovyalis zeyheri, Flacourtiaceae), the first of the then estimated 4900 type specimens that was to be included in our part of the African Plants Initiative. It ended last Thursday, when I scanned the 7881:st specimen, a Zygophyllum [...]

Savis klöver

Det är de oväntade detektivarbetena som gör jobbet med African Plants Initiative roligt. Idag kom jag över ett ark med med en pressad Trifolium elegans, en klöverart beskriven av den italienska botanisten Gaetano Savi (1769-1844) i hans Flora pisani (publicerad 1798). Arket, eller i alla fall växten som är monterad på det, var [...]