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Show Keeping Up MitnScience qfyenzeb er wee Science Service. WNU Service. Study Silversword to Solve Hawaii's Botanical Puzzle Rare, Beautiful Plant Interests Scientists WASHINGTON. Silver-swords, Silver-swords, among the rarest and most beautiful of Hawaiian Hawai-ian plants, constitute one of the world's prize puzzles in botany. Scientists of the Ber-nice Ber-nice Bishop Museum in Honolulu Hon-olulu and of the Carnegie Institution In-stitution of Washington, under un-der the leadership of Dr. David D. Keck, have lately been making a new effort to get more definite facts about this spectacular plant's kinships kin-ships and origin, for it is believed be-lieved that through such data new light may be shed on the still greater scientific riddle of Hawaii's unique forms of plant life, The silversword forms a ball-like ;luster of narrow, sword-shaped leaves, white with a silvery coating 3f hairs. From this basal rosette there shoots up a three to six-foot lower stalk, thickly beset with blooms. The plant is a member of the huge botanical family known as he Compositae, which includes such familiar things as sunflowers, landelions, artichokes, thistles, joldenrod, and lettuce. Not of American Ancestry. It has hitherto been considered more nearly related to the tarweeds, lound on the Pacific coasts of both imericas, but Dr. Keek's researches re-searches now indicate that it is not, ind that the silversword is more learly related to the tree-like composites com-posites of Hawaii, a very remark-ible remark-ible group of plants whose nearest cindred are found far southwest-wards southwest-wards across the Pacific, in Polynesia Poly-nesia and the Australia-New Zea-and Zea-and region. The elimination of an American ancestry of the silver-iwords, silver-iwords, and their assignment to an origin in a diametrically op- posite direction, is considered an Important step in plant geography. |
