THE PHYLOGENETIC TREE (PT)
This subpage (still under construction) is about the foundress's artwork on the evolution of flowering plants. One day her husband thought it should be possible to show the occurrence of caffeine in the plant kingdom in a vivid and easily understandable way.
Beatrice set about the task and accidentally discovered one of her drawings, which she had made at the age of 12. Its branches, surprisingly, corresponded quite closely to what characterizes the tree of flowering plants. It was the starting point - the original tree, so to speak - for the illustrations presented in (Series A).
While this first series of PTs was theme-centered, the second is based on the so-called Global Tree, on which (almost) all angiosperm families are each represented by a typical flower, as used in (Series B).
In both approaches, the idea was also that the viewer should be able to digitally climb the tree and interactively explore it, i.e. to learn about the branches and their decoration.
Series A: PTs BASED ON THE PRIMEVAL TREE
TREE CLIMBING
(a) For those who want to quickly discover the caffeine-containing plant genera in this world, the interactive Caffeine Tree is suitable.
(b) Another tree with its flowers and fruits leads the climber to the WFO (World Flora Online) which recently replaced The Plant List and led the climber even to the gene sequences of a species. Here it goes to an example.
Series B: PTs BASED ON THE GLOBAL TREE
Here we refer to Plant Gateway, where Dr. M.J.M. Christenhusz and Dr. J.W. Byng "provide accepted species-level classifications for all vascular plant families. The serial has three series: (A) Angiosperms (following APG IV, 2016); (B) Lycopods, Ferns and Gymnosperms." In the following we concentrate on the Global Tree of Angiosperms: "The poster shows important characters for major grades and clades and these are illustrated with flower images [photos] of 269 plant families. It is presented to provide a useful educational tool. The scientific names and photo accreditation of each image are listed."
Beatrice has taken it as her task to present this Global Angiosperm Tree as a 'real' tree on which systematic orientation is intuitively encouraged.
The black-and-white version can be viewed in detail by clicking on the praphic. The numbers and flowers (families) refer to the Global Tree.
The color version is more or less congruent with the black and white version. In both versions you can switch with mouse-over between the versions
This type of tree would also be suitable to visualize families characterized by a specific property, for example, the synthesis of secondary compounds such as cardiac glycosides.
However, in this tree is realized something else, namely the presence of white flowers.
Finally, this tree here shows what can be found in Switzerland in terms of angiosperm families. The gaps in the branches reveal what is absent.
SCHWEIZER ERNTE
Wer zählt die Arten, nennt die Namen?
This sentence alludes to the famous poem "The Cranes of Ibykus [Die Kraniche des Ibykus]" by Friedrich Schiller, where it says: "Who counts the peoples, gives the names, who hospitably came together here? [Wer zählt die Völker, nennt die Namen, die gastlich hier zusammenkamen?]".
Beatrice has taken the task to unite all edible plants growing in Switzerland on one poster. Here it is:
©Beatrice Häsler, villacoffea