Sunday, August 12, 2018

Carolus Clusius was here...not




This is no. 194 in the never-ending scholarly series "Ecological studies". This volume is titled "Clusia: A Woody Neotropical Genus of Remarkable Plasticity and Diversity".

It seems Clusia displays unique features because it's the only dicotyledonous tree genus with crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM). The genus is named after Carolus Clusius, the greatest botanist of the 16th century. He introduced the tulips to the Netherlands, and was involved in the introduction of potatoes to Europe. However, he never seems to have done any research on the South American trees named in his honour!

This book covers all aspects of Clusia, but it's extremely technical and only suited for botanists specializing in these particular plants.
Or perhaps in CAM.

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