Isatis tinctoria (woad)

November 9, 2017 cheeseman 0

Isatis tinctoria, aka Isatis indigotica, has long been used as a source of the blue dye, indigo, and numerous phytopharmacological agents. As such, it has received a different kind of attention at the transcriptomic level than other species, broadening our perspective on the study of eXtremophytes.

No Image

Sporobolus stapfianus

October 19, 2017 cheeseman 0

Sporobolus stapfianus is a member of one of the largest and most important plant families, the Poaceae, but, alas, as Gaff et al. have put it, it is “obscure”. In this case, the desiccation tolerance is not apparent in all tissues, but is restricted to immature leaves of intact plants, and an as yet uncertain portion of the root system. Young leaves can tolerate drying to a comparable to the dryness of seeds for at least a year. Additional stress tolerances are to ionizing radiation, extreme temperatures and salinity to at least 215 mM NaCl.