Scientists discover a new flower of Shetland

By Kenneth MacdonaldBBC Scotland Science Correspondent

16 August 2017

Scientists have discovered a brand new flower in Shetland.

It is a beauty.

A delicate golden bell of a flower, its throat flecked with tiny, blood-red spots - colours echoing the Lion Rampant.

It is a discreet beauty, though. Each flower is only slightly larger than a 50p piece.

Discreet and unique, because this is a new flower of Scotland. Or, more precisely, Shetland.

The flower was discovered by a team from Stirling's department of biological and environmental sciences led by post-doctoral researcher Dr Violeta Simon-Porcar, working with associate professor Dr Mario Vallejo-Marin at Stirling and Dr James Higgins at Leicester University.

It is being referred to as "Shetland's monkeyflower", because it is larger and its flowers are more open than previous monkeyflowers.

Continued

Ice To See You: 30,000-Year-Old Flower Revived (via Simon Reames) update from earlier post

Fruit and seeds hidden in an Ice Age squirrel's burrow in Siberian permafrost have been resurrected into a flower by Russian scientists.

Using a pioneering experiment, the Sylene stenophylla has become the oldest plant ever to be regrown and it is fertile, producing white flowers and viable seeds.

The seeds date back 30,000 to 32,000 years and raise hopes that iconic Ice Age mammals like the woolly mammoth could also eventually be resurrected.

The researchers, who published their findings in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in the US, said the results prove that permafrost serves a natural depository for ancient life forms.

"We consider it essential to continue permafrost studies in search of an ancient genetic pool, that of pre-existing life, which hypothetically has long since vanished from the earth's surface," the scientists said in the article.

For photo of flower:  http://news.sky.com/home/strange-news/article/16174136