Ever wonder why apples and horse chestnuts produce so many flowers and so few fruits? Darwin did, and he saw the "wasteful and inefficient" reproduction of species like these as a challenge to his theory of evolution. The reasons why plants produce so many flowers and so few fruits would both surprise and please Mr. Darwin. About Andy Stephenson's "Just So-So Stories":
One hundred fifteen years ago, Rudyard Kipling published his "Just So Stories." These delightful children’s stories focused on curious animal traits (e.g., how the leopard got his spots, how the elephant got his trunk, and so forth), but they were woefully Lamarckian in perspective (a debunked evolutionary theory). In September2019, recently retired Distinguished Professor of Biology Andrew Stephenson gave aseries of four public talks that focused on curious plant traits from an evolutionary perspective. Titled "The Just So-So Stories," this series of talks takes a transect through Andy's 45 years of experimental natural history research. We hope you will find them to be both delightful and thought-provoking.
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