THE Himalayan snow lotus has been sent down an ever shrinking evolutionary path. And it’s all down to people picking large flowers for herbal remedies and tourist souvenirs, according to a botanical survey.
Large flowers of Saussurea laniceps are prized as traditional treatments for headache and high blood pressure.
The flowers are picked when they have grown to their maximum size, but before they have the chance to set their seeds.
To see if harvesting the larger flowers was weeding out the genes for larger plant size, Wayne Law and Jan Salick of Missouri Botanical Garden in St Louis compared…
