"Once again"? I don't look in on this group often enough. Presumably you
agree that new biochemical traits arise by mutation, and that if there is no
mutation there will be no variation (except maybe behavioural variation),
and therefore no evolution. Are you seriously proposing that mutations arise
by something more than chance? I thought you were joking when you referred
to plants as professional biochemists. I haven't kept up to date on this, so
if you would care to expound your view of evolutionary events yet again, I'd
be grateful. In any case, when I have time I'll scrounge around for the
current consensus

Colin

"P van Rijckevorsel" wrote in message
...
Well, just to emphasize this once again:
"random mutation"s do not have much to do with evolution.

Co-evolution with insects is of very great importance, but chance plays
only
a limited part.

Would not be all that surprised to find a 'cheesy' plant with a blue mould
growing through it. I lost a great deal of my ability to be surprised when
discovering greenhouse plants ;-)
PvR

c.mcculloch schreef
PvR is right - evolution doesn't plan anything. In this case, I'd
suggest
that rather than try to imitate the aroma of cheese, this one just
happened
by random mutation, and turned out to be popular with insect pollinators.
That plant therefore produced more seeds than others, and passed the
cheesy
trait to its offspring. Now if you could find one with blue mould growing
through it...

Colin


"Iris Cohen" wrote
Some years ago I had a stapeliad type plant, I forget the name, whose
flowers smell exactly like cheese. Presumably its pollinator was some kind
of cheese fly. My question: mother animals in the wild don't leave their
milk
lying around to turn into cheese. I understand cheese is strictly a human
discovery. So how did a flower evolve that smells like cheese?
Iris,