amy_choi's Journal

Coprinopsis atramentaria, also known as inky cap mushrooms are wild mushrooms found throughout Europe and North America that grow after rain during spring and autumn. It is most known for its antioxidant activity that contain cinnamic acid that can help humans combat malignant tumours. The organic acids are extracted by reducing samples into fine powder that are then put into a centrifuge to extract the methanol from it. Although it cannot be consumed with alcohol, the research shows that its extract can have effective cytotoxicity on various human tumour cells lining especially for carcinomas found in breasts, lung, cervix, and liver cells. Although it is a several compounds added and some synthesized to obtain this result, there was no toxicity towards non-tumour cells PLP2 which means that the doses for cancer patients could be increased without harming the effect. It is interesting how organic acids and its compounds in fungi can have such revolutionary medical uses.

One adaption a single one of my observations has that the rest of your observations do not:
Linaria vulgaris have a particular reproductive adaptation where their seedlings can produce daughter shoots only 3 weeks after the cotyledon is produced. This is to ensure that when the ground is between 5-10 degrees Celsius, it has the chance to reproduce to start producing a root system that will sustain them when the ideal blooming period occurs in mid-summer.

One adaptation all of my observations share:
All my plants have a blooming period of mid/late summer to late fall, hence their bloomed state in the pictures. This means that they have adapted to the climate if they were not native to the area, and if they were it shows that they are adapting to the hotter and longer summers due to climate change to survive those periods of time to stay in full bloom. Another adaptation would be that all flowering plants have long spreading roots because they are quite thin so in order to obtain nutrients from the ground, length is to their advantage.

Phylogenetic tree location of one of your observations using OneZoom:
The Asclepias incarnata (swamp milkweed) is closely related to the poison milkweed where it has the same common ancestor with 3 other species. All of them related to 103 species with a common ancestor, all milkweeds.