Who at #botany2026 is thinking about which talks to see tomorrow? Maybe I humbly recommend our talk on Physalis phylogenomics where we ask the question, why are there so many tomatillo species 50 million years after a (famous to Solanologists) bottleneck? Tomorrow 1:30pm in San Ignacio!

Hoy la botánica está de luto tras el fallecimiento de Peter H. Raven, referente mundial en botánica y una voz clave en biodiversidad y conservación. Nuestro pésame a su familia, amigos y a la comunidad científica. 🔗 www.missouribotanicalgarden.org/peter-raven

We identified a novel location for acylsugars, on the fruit surface, widely distributed across the Physalis genus. Paves the way for understanding the cell types and regulation responsible to fruit-surface localized acylsugars in collab with @iochromaland.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Novel production of structurally diverse and sticky defense metabolites on wild tomatillo fruits

Plants have evolved a structurally diverse chemical repertoire to mediate various environmental interactions. Yet, little is known about the chemical complexity and metabolic pathways across many plan...

biorxiv.org

A new phylogeny and phylogenetic classification for the nightshades 🍅🌶🍆 Thirteen years after the previous family phylogeny, we expanded the sampling, reaching 1474 species and resulting in a new rank-free classification for Solanaceae dx.doi.org/10.1002/tax....

A new phylogeny and phylogenetic classification for Solanaceae

Solanaceae are a globally distributed family of considerable economic importance. Recent phylogenetic work on various clades in the family has resulted in a plethora of names at various taxonomic lev...

dx.doi.org

Interested in big flowering plant genera? Come work with the exciting global Solanum group - based at @nhm-london.bsky.social - phylogenomics, diversification, nightshade fun! jobs.nhm.ac.uk/Job/JobDetai...

Postdoctoral Researcher in Solanaceae Phylogenomics:South Kensington

jobs.nhm.ac.uk

The new bee documentary is out today in Disney+. Our buzzing bees did make the cut at the end! It is really nice to see the clip of how bees use previously collected nectar to pack pollen even in nectarless flowers! There are lots of other cool things in this two-part film!

Would you like to know about the sweetest Physalis? 🍊🌱 This short note explores diversity across the genus, highlighting traits like berry sweetness and their potential for crop improvement and food systems. link.springer.com/article/10.1... #Physalis #Solanaceae #PlantScience #CropDiversity

Wild sweet Physalis: promising underutilized minor crops - Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution

Global food security challenges are driving renewed interest in neglected and underutilized crops with high nutritional and agronomic potential. The genus Physalis includes more than 95 species, yet o...

link.springer.com

How old are tomatoes, peppers and golden berries? 🍅🌱 We combined fossils with molecular data to time-calibrate the evolutionary history of #Solanaceae Curious about total-evidence dating? Take a look! academic.oup.com/aob/advance-...

Late Cretaceous origins for major nightshade lineages from total-evidence timetree analysis

AbstractBackground and Aims. The timing of the radiation of nightshades (Solanaceae) has been contentious in the literature, with estimates of the crown ag

academic.oup.com

And now it is out! Even if you haven't been sweating how old tomatoes are, click for some lovely time trees decorated with plant fossils! (or if you're thinking about doing a TED analysis yourself and want to see how we pulled it off :) academic.oup.com/aob/advance-...

Late Cretaceous origins for major nightshade lineages from total-evidence timetree analysis

AbstractBackground and Aims. The timing of the radiation of nightshades (Solanaceae) has been contentious in the literature, with estimates of the crown ag

academic.oup.com

Our paper inferring the timing of evolution of Solanaceae using a Bayesian total-evidence dating approach is now out in Annals of Botany! 🥔🌱 It will be part of a special issue highlighting the fundamental role of the fossil record in understanding the history of life. tinyurl.com/327354tb

Late Cretaceous origins for major nightshade lineages from total-evidence timetree analysis

AbstractBackground and Aims. The timing of the radiation of nightshades (Solanaceae) has been contentious in the literature, with estimates of the crown ag

tinyurl.com

The seed fossil record of Solanaceae revisited is out! Using morphometrics and micro-CT data from 110 fossils and 354 extant taxa, we described 6 new genera and 6 new species, doubling fossil diversity for the nightshades! 🔗 doi.org/10.1002/tax.... @iochromaland.bsky.social

My most important co-authored publication came out a month ago. Tomatis & Deanna (2025)

Nomenclatural news for Browallia and Streptosolen (#Solanaceae)! doi.org/10.1002/tax.... With @davidhoyos41.bsky.social and @sandyknapp.bsky.social

Typifications in the tribe Browallieae (Cestroideae: Solanaceae)

The tribe Browallieae is a monophyletic group comprising Browallia and Streptosolen. These genera are of significant interest in the horticulture industry due to their ornamental potential. Despite t...

doi.org

@sandyknapp.bsky.social opens the #SOLRUB2025 meeting talking about how wonderful are #Solanaceae species. New dating results are coming out soon. The family is older that we thought. Almost 90 MY. She closes her presentation talking about the importance of community.

It posted more than a week ago, but I finally find time to share my work with @iochromaland.bsky.social and @rociodeanna.bsky.social on the divergence times of Solanaceae! It has been one of the greatest collaborations in my lifetime with two inspiring scientists! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Late Cretaceous origins for major nightshade lineages from total evidence timetree analysis

Background and Aims The timing of the radiation of nightshades (Solanaceae) has been contentious in the literature, with estimates of the crown age ranging from ca. 30 to 70 Mya (mid-Oligocene to late...

biorxiv.org

Big news! We are recruiting a postdoc to work on tomatillo evolution: jobs.colorado.edu/jobs/JobDeta.... The clade containing tomatillos and its allies (ca 300 spp) has evolved lantern fruits at least 25 times - we want to know why! Join us @rociodeanna.bsky.social & @caschenck-bio.bsky.social

Thanks @botany.one for the interview!

Botany One@botany.one · last yr.

🌿 Meet Dr. Rocío Deanna,@rociodeanna.bsky.social, a botanist tracing nightshade evolution from ancient fossils to modern ecosystems! Her work bridges paleobotany & phylogenetics to unlock Solanaceae secrets. wp.me/pdRZhH-lYF #Botany #PlantScience 🧪

Friends at #Evol2025! Tomorrow at 11:30am in the Macro section, Dr. Ixchel Gonzalez-Ramirez is presenting our new timetree for nightshades. Thanks to her, our total-evidence dating models discrete & continuous morphological characters & allows different div dynamics across geologic periods. PLUS

David Hoyos obtuvo una beca EDUFI para realizar una estancia de seis meses en el Museo Finlandes de Historia Natural de la ‪@helsinki.fi‬ (Finlandia) bajo la supervisión de @rociodeanna.bsky.social‬. (+ info en el hilo) 👇

Findings during Easter in Finland (not exactly plants)

Hi Bluesky, the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) is the world’s largest #OpenAccess digital library of biodiversity literature and archives. We're a global consortium of 660 contributors who've made 63 million pages of biodiversity knowledge freely accessible online. www.biodiversitylibrary.org

Look at this amazing nightshade, first one to flower in Helsinki Botanical Garden! #iamabotanist #Solanaceae

April 13th - International Plant Appreciation Day! 💚🌱 Photo: Clusia nitida Bittrich & F.N.Cabral Caracaraí, Roraima, Brazil.

Check out this new #AJB commentary by Nicholas Turland! From the Shenzhen Code to the Madrid Code: New rules & recommendations for naming #algae, #fungi & plants doi.org/10.1002/ajb2... #botany #plantscience

Back in social media to share exciting news and observations about plants! Spring is coming in the Northern Hemisphere 🪻