Monday, July 19, 2004

Beware the Burr Chervil!

Could burr chervil (Anthriscus caucalis) have mutated into the next purple loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria)? According to this article from Today@Idaho, that's what one University of Idaho biologist hopes to find out. While a graduate student at the same university in the early 1990s, Dr. Tim Prather noted that burr chervil was not an aggressive weed. Now Prather notes that the plant is much more common, expanding its geographic range and showing up in unexpected habitats. He hopes that molecular techniques may identify a genetic change that explains burr chervil's sudden success.

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