Trichomes gone wild. What do you want me to say? Regulatory network broken. Transcription factor co-opted for some other, less hairy function. I don’t know. I can’t even tell you what clade this crazy species belongs in because its trichomes keep clogging up the DNA sequencer.

Yep: a bona fide TERRIBLE photo. But you take what you can get when you’re in the depths of southern Colombia.

Wild collected, Colombia, Tripp et al. #5230 [COLO]; Photo by E. Tripp