Penn State's Research Unplugged was in full bloom as the audience learned about primordial flowers with Claude dePamphilis on April 22.

The event, the final of the spring 2009 season, appropriately took place on Earth Day. DePamphilis, professor of biology and co-director of the international Floral Genome Project, showed the audience how to count the petals, stamens and other flower parts to identify different families of flowering plants. With the help of Penn State Master Gardener volunteer Martha Moss, he passed around examples of the two primary types of flowering plants, monocots and dicots, each of which includes thousands of species. As always, the audience kept the speaker on his toes by posing many thoughtful questions.

Keep visiting www.rps.psu.edu/unplugged this summer for updates on our exciting upcoming fall season!