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Darwin and the Evolution of Flowers

11 - 12 May 2009 09:00 - 17:00

Organised by Sir Peter Crane FRS, Professor Else Marie Friis and Professor William Chaloner FRS

This meeting will highlight the influence of Darwin on our understanding of the evolution of flowers, presenting new and emerging evidence from seed plant phylogenetics, palaeobotany and morphology. It will review how recent research in these and related fields has brought us closer to resolving the origin of flowers and flowering plants (Darwin's so-called "abominable mystery"). The recent clarification of angiosperm phylogeny at many taxonomic levels, coupled with evidence from the fossil record has given new opportunities for understanding patterns in the evolution of floral structure and biology.

This meeting will also explore how the vast range of floral form seen in the angiosperms has been generated by developmental genetics, and the impacts of contemporary environmental change on the pollination of flowers.

The proceedings of this meeting are scheduled to be published in a future issues of Philosophical Transactions B.

Organisers

  • Professor Sir Peter Crane FRS, University of Chicago

    Peter Crane is The John and Marion Sullivan University Professor at The University of Chicago.  He is known internationally for his work on the diversity of plant life.  He received his degrees from the University of Reading and joined the Field Museum in Chicago in 1982 where he served as Director from 1992 to 1999.  From 1999 to 2006 he was Director of The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Peter Crane was elected to the Royal Society in 1998.  He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Foreign Associate of the US National Academy of Sciences, a Foreign Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and a Member of the German Academy Leopoldina.  He was knighted in the UK for services to horticulture and conservation in 2004. 

  • Professor Else Marie Friis

  • Professor Bill Chaloner FRS, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK

    Bill Chaloner is Emeritus Professor of Botany in the Earth Sciences Department at Royal Holloway, University of London, and Visiting Professor in Earth Sciences at University College, London.  His first teaching post was in Botany at University College, moving to take the Chair of Botany at Birkbeck College, and thence to Bedford College until its merger with Royal Holloway College.  He has held visiting professorships at the University of Nigeria, at Penn State University and at the University of Massachusetts. His research has dealt with the fossil record of the history of plant life on land from the Silurian to the present and the response of plant life to changes in atmospheric composition and climate. He has also explored the relationship between the fossil spore (palynological) record and that of plant macrofossils as a means of elucidating the palaeoecology of the terrestrial environment.