In his article on his 2001 field trip to the Richtersveld), Terry Smale (2003) mentioned that he had been informed by Andreas Jiirgens that the regulation of nocturnal flowering may be controlled by a single gene. I found this rather surprising giventhat such a complex process with a series of inter-related factors such as timing, flower structure and scent composition must be involved. I was intrigued about this and scent production in general, and decided to research this topic further. In doing so I came across some background information that may be of interest to MSG members. Please note that the following are general statements and do not necessarily relate to mesembs per se nor is it intended to be a comprehensive review of this phenomenon.However, there is no particular reason, as far as I can see, why mesembs would be expected to behave very differently from other plants.
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