Botanical Accuracy: The wrong mutants are singing the blues

Monday, January 6, 2014

The wrong mutants are singing the blues

An article published online today (Jan 6, 2014) in The New York Times ('Mutant Petunias Sing the Blues') about some exciting new research on the evolution of blue color of some garden petunias is illustrated with this nice photo:

This is not a blue petunia, it is a morning glory.
Screen shot from NY Times website, Jan 6, 2014, by BotanicalAccuracy.com

Now, the only problem is that this is not a petunia. Petunias are members of the genus Petunia (simple!) in the Solanaceae, the potato family. This is unfortunately a photo of a morning glory, in the genus Ipomoea in the family Convolvulaceae, related to sweet potatoes. There are several kinds of morning glories, all in the same family, and both morning glories and petunias come in a wide array of flower color patterns.

The very interesting research article has the right plant in its illustrations.

Illustration showing the mutation that causes blue petunias.
Image (c) Faraco et al. (2014) [Cell reports 10.1016/j.celrep.2013.12.009]

How could this happen in a news article? Well, I guess someone at The New York Times did a stock photo search for petunia and found a nice photo, used it, and didn't realized it was mislabeled. Stock photo archives are full of mislabeled plants. So you pay for a photo, and then it turns out to show the wrong plant - not really what you paid for. Here is the source at iStock by Getty images:

The source of the wrong petunia image.
Screen shot from iStock by Getty Images website, Jan 6, 2014, by BotanicalAccuracy.com

Now, how do you tell a petunia from a morning glory? There are a couple of differences. Morning glories usually have heart-shaped leaves (like the ones on the photo above). Petunias have smaller, hairy oval-shaped leaves. Morning glories are climbers that twist their stem around something to climb higher and higher. Petunias grow like little bushy herbs, no climbing and twisting in them. The colorful petals are fused in both species into a giant flaring trumpet (the corolla) and can look similar, but the edge of the corolla is mostly even in morning glories, but uneven and notched in petunias.

Here is a petunia:

Petunia flower.
Public domain photo by Zirguezi.

Here is a morning glory:

Morning glories (Ipomoea sp., Convolvulaceae)

Blue morning glory flower.
(cc) Vilseskogen on Flickr.

[Thanks to BA for notifying me about this mistake. The New York Times have been notified.]

UPDATE 1: It seems that the wrong photo was first used by the renowned science magazine Science [!!!] in their highlight of this research. See their article titled "ScienceShot: Broken Pump turns petunias blue", dated Jan 2, 2014. So The New York Times probably just reused the photo provide by Science. Here is the screenshot:

The first use of the wrong petunia image, in Science.
Screenshot from Science Magazine, on Jan 5, 2014, by BotanicalAccuracy.com

UPDATE 2: International Science Times picked a new photo for their article about this research, and again, a morning glory is on the photo, not a petunia. Screenshot below:

Another morning glory presented as a petunia.
Screenshot from International Business Times website, Jan 7, 2014, by BotanicalAccuracy.com.

UPDATE 3: Science fixed the photo error within a few hours of being notified, and now display petunias with their article. Excellent! Here is the new photo, provided by the authors of the research study, Francesca Quattrocchio and Ronald Koes.

A new photo with abundant and correct petunias on the corrected Science web page.
Screenshot from Science magazine website, Jan 9, 2014, by BotanicalAccuracy.com.

UPDATE 4: Some other media organizations and companies got it right from the beginning. Kudos to International Business Times, NBC News, Discover Magazine, Headlines and Global News.

UPDATE 5: New York Times removed the photo for their article and provided a correction on Jan 10, 2014. Thank you!

What is Botanical Accuracy?

Would you care if someone called a cat 'a mouse' in the description of a medieval painting?

Would you care if someone served you horse meat, but said it was beef? I bet you would.

Would you care if the wrong chemical was listed in the ingredient list of your shampoo or cereal?

Would you care if you bought one plant, but got another?

Would you care if there were species or ingredient mistakes in advertising, menus, herbal pills, and such things?

Would you care if books on plants are illustrated with the wrong plants?

If so, here is the place for you to read about such problems in the world of plants and plant products, where unfortunately such mistakes, inaccuracies, and problems are not uncommon. This is usually due to lack of botanical knowledge or expertise, or sometimes because of plain ignorance.

Inaccuracies are common when it comes to plants, because it seems like we humans care to learn less about green things like trees, flowers, and herbs than we care to learn about animals, even when we eat plants, paint them, plant them, extract their chemicals, or use them in numerous other ways.

Without plants in the world you and I certainly would be dead. Some plants can also kill you with their toxins, so it is best to know which plant is what species. Time to learn some botany!

About mistakes, inaccuracies, and errors

Science is a process of gaining knowledge and understanding of the world around us. It is a never-ending process, and what we think are true facts today might change tomorrow. In science we are aiming for having the best understanding possible today based on what we and our predecessors have learned until now.

This means that what is botanically accurate from a scientific viewpoint might (and will) change. Other experts in the field of botany know a lot more about their particular research plants than I do. New scientific findings and conclusions are being published every day. This is just normal and part of the scientific process; we improve on our knowledge all the time.

The important thing is our willingness to continuously aim for botanical accuracy and the highest scientific standards in our use of names and facts. When things are wrong, let's correct them. Let us not perpetuate wrong botanical knowledge by accepting its incorrect use on commercial products, in everyday language, or in other parts of our contemporary cultures. Through scientific education and specific corrections we will improve botany and science for everybody, in supermarkets, restaurants, and garden centers.

It is the perpetuation of incorrect facts that are the problem, not the need for correction. Everybody makes mistakes, and everybody learns, throughout their lives. We need words to be able to communicate and talk about things, so let's use the right words and the right species names.

Undoubtedly there will be mistakes and errors on this blog, or things that need to be updated. If you want to get in touch, please e-mail me at botanicalaccuracy at gmail.com. If you see a mistake on this blog, e-mail me with the link to the post and an explanation what is incorrect and should be updated. If you represent a company and want to get in touch, please use the same e-mail address.