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e-Monocot is a NERC funded consortium between Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, Oxford University and the Natural History Museum.
Grant no's 279981, 279984 & 279970. Period, Nov./Dec. 2010 to Oct./Nov. 2013.
- Coordinator & Kew PI: Dr. Paul Wilkin.
- Oxford PI Prof. Charles Godfray.
- NHM PI Dr. Vince Smith.
E-mail: enquiries@e-monocot.org.
My favourite monocot group is the Iris family, probably because of their unusual leaves and their interesting flowers. The leaves of most Iridaceae are unifacial and equitant. The flowers are often arranged on an axis in clusters or solitary and are subtended by two opposite bracts. This is a specimen of Babiana angustifolia (a species described by Sweet in 1826) which flowered in one of the nurseries at Kew in March 2011. Note how the flowers at the tip of the spike are younger and therefore last to open. In Babiana, the leaves are usually pleated and hairy and the flowers can be blue, mauve, violet, pale yellow to white, pink or red.
Odile has been working as the curatorial assistant in the Alismatid and Lilioid Systematic Team at RBG, Kew for nearly five years before the start of the project. Her research has focused on the geographical distribution and conservation status of species (mostly yams from Madagascar and aloes from the Horn of Africa) as well as creating a Scratchpad for Dracaenoids. As part of the content team she will initially work on a multi-access identification tool to the monocot families according to the APGIII classification system. Other responsibilities include compiling taxon information for internet pages, attending workshops and engaging with monocot taxonomists and IT developers.
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