Natural History Wanderings

Earth.com reported

On sheer rock walls in West Africa, a small, unassuming plant carries a genetic trait that does not belong in its family, disobeying the usual rules of inheritance.

This discovery challenges long-held assumptions about how plants change, adapt, and pass traits forward across generations.

The plant, Virectaria stellata, was identified at three sandstone sites in Guinea after botanists noticed its unusual star-shaped hairs and traced their origin to possible gene transfer rather than ordinary mutation.

Read more at Plant found that appears to have stolen genes from another species