THE sweet scent of the flower Clarkia breweri has its evolutionary origins in the plant’s ability to make wood.
The plant contains a gene called IEMT that produces the flower’s scent. Todd Barkman of Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo analysed similar genes in 11 related species. He discovered that the scent gene is closely related to a gene that the other species use to make an enzyme that produces lignin, the polymer that gives wood its rigidity.
The scent gene probably started life as a copy of the enzyme gene, before diverging and taking on its new function (Molecular Biology…
