Eyebrights: Was I in at the discovery of a new species

From complete ignorance of this plant to fandom--maybe I am the founding member of the North American Eyebright Fan club.  Many others will surely want to join when they become aware of this excellent plant.

Among other pleasures of visiting Fair Isle Bird Observatory is the pleasant chats with the other guests at meals or in the bar/lounge/living room.  Anyone can show up it seems --from visiting yachties to other birders to a vacationing book group to researchers of many kinds.  We all sympathized mightily with the plankton researchers who could not get out to collect samples because the water was too rough. 

But imagine my excitement to be having lunch with a scientist who might have just discovered a new species, maybe two, of the plant he is studying!  Be still my heart.

Euphrasia is tiny and even I, who have been taking photos of pretty small wildflowers, had passed it over.  Until, that is, my eyes were opened to Eyebright which is common even along the roadsides.  It is an exciting plant and Alex Twyford, from University of Edinburgh, with other researchers is studying speciation and other aspects of  Eyebright evolution. Read more about their project here and here.

Eyebright gets its common name from its folk use for eye problems.  It is ubiquitous in the UK (maybe elsewhere in Europe) but we do not have it in North America.  Some of the current excitement leading to research funding has to do with its parasitism.  It grows parasitically on grass and one other thing which I cannot now recall.  The genetic mechanisms for such parasitism may lead to understanding and development of methods for controlling weeds in maize or other food crops without the use of pesticides.

Thus, Alex was wandering the fields, crossing paths with those of us birdwatchers looking for Fair Isle wrens--only a subspecies after all.  His wandering and sharp educated eye identified one, possibly two, varieties of Eyebright previously unknown to him and his group.  

DNA testing will confirm or not as new species,  I will definitely update the blog when the news is out. We had the fun of thinking of a species name in case it is true.  How fun is that.

In the meantime, Eyebright is a darling plant and other North American fans are welcome to join.  No membership fees required until next January.

These are my photos of Eyebright.  The one at the top is taken from Alex's website.

These flowers are about 1/8 of an inch across.  Whole plant is about 2 inches from root to top of flowers.