Guest-blogging today is one of my colleagues, Eric La Fountaine. Eric's been responsible for the scanning of the seeds and John Davidson slides that have been shared to date on BPotD (along with many other tasks). – Daniel

You might not recognize the seeds in this image as a common food source – rice. Oryza sativa is a staple part of the diet of almost fifty percent of the world’s human population. Needless to say, understanding the genetics of rice is crucial to understanding and protecting this valuable resource.

Rice is a cultigen, a “species” that is the result of human hybridization and selection, i.e., Oryza sativa did not exist prior to human intervention. General consensus is that the wild progenitor of Oryza sativa is Oryza rufipogon (see: history of rice cultivation), though some scientists disagree (read the subsection on botany and origin of rice).

Botany resource link: The Saxifrage Society has an excellent site dedicated to the genus Saxifraga and relatives. The highlight is their database, Saxbase, which you can use to browse through (great) images of many of the plants.