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In 1949 Marion Ownbey, herbarium director and professor of botany at WSU from 1939 to 1974, surprised Tragopogon, an introduced plant commonly called salsify or goatsbeard, in the act of evolution. He discovered that two species of Tragopogon, which were known to have escaped from gardens and to be spreading throughout the Palouse, had produced three hybrid varieties. Two of these qualified as separate and distinct species by successfully reproducing themselves; the third cross remained infertile. Now, almost 50 years after Ownbey's discovery, studies of the reproduction patterns of Tragopogon are still adding to the understanding of evolutionary changes. WSU botany graduate student Linda Cook is using the species in her study of polyploidy—the addition of extra sets of chromosomes—and its consequences for plant evolution.
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