Some of you will recall my excitement last Summer upon the discovery of a seedpod on my Madagascar Jasmine plant (see my plant page). I was recently able to finally harvest the seedpod and collect the seeds, of which there were about 100! They trail light feathery strings, much like dandelions. I tossed a few in the air and allowed them to gently float down to the floor. The tassles could easily be removed from the seeds, which I have stored in a dry tube.
After orchids, Madagascar Jasmine is my favorite flower – it produces large white waxy flowers that will literally cause your entire room to smell like jasmine for weeks or months. MJ is most commonly used for bridal wreaths and I always wind mine (I have two) around a steel hoop. They are extremely aggressive growers and low maintenance. I have never grown one from seed, so this will certainly be a new adventure for me! I currently have some healthy tomato plants growing along with some lemon herb. My stevia seeds are challenging to grow, but I have had some success getting them to germinate. I would like to be able to grow my own stevia since I use it to sweeten my tea – I drink about 1-2 gallons of tea every day, no joke. Anyway, here are some pictures of the seedpod and seeds…
I’ve also just begun transforming my Arabaidopsis plants – well technically transforming their meiotic genes in order to produce a transgenic line from the resulting seeds. I will be creating an entire page on my website devoted to my research, when I get some time. I really want to get my paleogenetics website up ASAP.
Also, Pride Week has been a huge success so far. The drag show is tonight at 8:00 PM. I will try to film it like I did last year. You can still watch the entire show by visiting http://www.umaine.edu/wildestein or my YouTube account. The Rainbow Pride Flag has been waving all week on the campus mall and Jenny Boylan, author of She’s Not There and transgender activist and professor at Colby College, spoke to a standing room only yesterday…the room’s capacity was 300 seats! I’ve read her book and she’s written 11 others, including a children’s / young adult book dated for release May 11th – I’m excited to read it, having just finished Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol. Boylan’s book is titled Falcon Quinn and the Black Mirror. You can read more about Jenny’s UMaine appearance here. She continues to be an inspiration for all of us who believe in being true to ourselves.
This also may interest some of you – a video panning of Streptomyces, a soil bacteria we studied in my microbiology lab. I used a simple gram stain and my video microscope at 400X to capture the image below.