SO9-Aquilegia

One other plant species of interest has become the commonly bluish violet flowering Aquilegia vulgaris of the Swiss pre-Alps. It is reported that this species can rarely have whitish flowers. This deme suddenly becomes more frequent locally and behaves like a hybrid swarm, including blue violet, flowered individuals, and mauve flowered and whitish ones. It is a case for long-term observation and checking if there is an altitudinal gradient of floral color. It is believed that there are populations with mixed flowers at lower sites, whereas, at higher altitudes, flowers were uniform blue or dark violet. The lower ecotype has a tendency to exhibit a lilac-flowered state, which is a relatively new finding.

There is an occurrence of a "hybrid swarm" featuring Aquilegia vulgaris (not Formosa) in a site with mixed floral colors. The light mauve-flowered form with longer stalks becomes increasingly dominant, while the former blue form diminishes in frequency.

L*a*b Color space distribution of Aquilegia floral colors

 Two Aquilegia color variants growing close by at a forest edge

R2R3MYB12 in Aquilegia

Aquilegia plants are widely distributed across Asia, the Himalayas, Europe, and North America. Despite this diversity among different Aquilegia species, their genomic makeup is surprisingly consistent. This uniformity is particularly evident in the MYB12 factor, which is the main transcription unit for anthocyanins. Notably, this factor shows no variation, except in the first intron region of the MYB gene. In this region, a poly G-chain can be found, which is variably interspersed with adenine (A) and thymine (T) nucleotides in a very ordered manner. When comparing the sequences from four different species, the patterns resemble programming code.