Investigating Prince Edward Island’s iconic flower: upei.ca/lupines
They are as connected to the Prince Edward Island identity as red pigtails and sandy beaches-lupine flowers burst into colourful blossoms just as the Island summer hits its peak. A UPEI research project is looking for input from the public to help answer questions about the genetics of this iconic flower.
'We're accustomed to seeing big patches of lupines along the roads of Prince Edward Island in June and July,' said Dr. Karen Samis, a plant geneticist and assistant professor of biology at UPEI. 'One question we're examining is: why are the purple flowers more prominent than the pink or white?'
Dr. Samis conducted a small survey last year to examine some of the differences between plants of different flower colours, including their ratios within populations, and the number of seeds produced by stems of each colour.
'The fruits were particularly telling, because one would think that, since purple-flowered plants were the most common, they might produce the most seeds,' explained Dr. Samis. 'We found quite the opposite. Pink, by far, creates more seeds per stem. That raises a number of new questions we're now investigating.'
Dr. Samis said this could suggest an ebb and flow of flower-colour distribution among lupine patches over time.
'Perhaps, in a number of years, pink will become more prominent than purple. Purple may respond by creating more seeds, and then purple will become more prominent.'
Dr. Samis invites the public to help answer these questions by submitting their photos of lupine patches at upei.ca/lupines.
'We're hoping that people have, over a number of years, taken photos of a particular lupine patch several times,' said Dr. Samis. 'We'd like to compare these and see if there has been a change over time from one colour to the next, or if what we saw last year is always true; that purple is always more common than pink and white.'
The public can submit their photos to upei.ca/lupines, and answer a few simple questions about the patch of lupines, and where they are located on the Island.
'I'm hoping people see the fun in this and look back through their family photos,' said Dr. Samis. 'Perhaps there is a patch of lupines near their house or cottage that they like to take a photo of every year. Maybe there's a patch in the background of a family portrait that's been taken several times over the years. Any way we can get them, we'd like to see these photos.'
