UNF professor and colleagues name new rare flower

Dr. Scott F. Jones, assistant professor of biology at the University of North Florida, is the lead author of a recently published paper revealing a new flower subspecies on the ancient dunes in the San Francisco Bay-Delta in California.

While the manuscript was written and revised by Jones while working at UNF, the paper describes work he conducted in the field while he was with the United States Geological Survey (USGS) Western Ecological Research Center team in California.

By looking at the ecology and genetics of the endangered Antioch Dunes Evening Primrose (Oenothera deltoides howellii) in the area, Jones and his colleagues discovered an unknown subspecies.

The proposed common name of the new subspecies is the Bay Miwok Evening Primrose (Oenothera deltoides julpunensis), named in honor of the Julpun village site of the Bay Miwok, who are indigenous to the area where the plant occurs in Contra Costa County, California.

Jones' fellow co-authors Drs. Elizabeth Milano and Amy Vandergast, USGS San Diego, CA; Dr. Ryan O'Dell, U.S. Bureau of Land Management; Molly Ferrell, California Department of Water Resources; and Dr. Karen Thorne, USGS Davis, CA have joined a long list of investigators attempting to describe the vast biodiversity of the California flora.

Read "Bay Miwok Evening Primrose: A New California Endemic" in Madroño - A West American Journal of Botany.