I Find This Quite Amazing,

a plant has changed it's colour to stop us picking it!

all photographs Dr Yang Niu/Kunming Institute of Botany, scientists had known that many plants evolved to use camouflage as a way of hiding from herbivores that may eat them, but a recent study suggests that one particular plant species has developed the same mechanism to hide from human harvesters. Researchers found that Fritillaria delavayi plants, which grow on the rocky slopes of China’s Hengduan mountains, match their backgrounds most closely in areas where they are intensely harvested by humans,

Fritillaria delavayi, is a plant used in traditional Chinese medicine, “It’s remarkable to see how humans can have such a direct and dramatic impact on the coloration of wild organisms, not just on their survival but on their evolution itself,” said Professor Martin Stevens, of the Centre for Ecology and Conservation on Exeter’s Penryn Campus in Cornwall,

“Many plants seem to use camouflage to hide from herbivores that may eat them – but here we see camouflage evolving in response to human collectors,” Stevens added. “It’s possible that humans have driven evolution of defensive strategies in other plant species, but surprisingly little research has examined this.” the bulb of Fritillaria delavayi plants has been used in Chinese medicine for more than 2,000 years, and its increasing popularity in recent years has led to increased harvesting as well. This led Professor Hang Sun, of the Kunming Institute of Botany, to concluded that “commercial harvesting is a much stronger selection pressure than many pressures in nature”, how amazing!