Latest Achievements
Emeritus Chemistry Professor William Wood recently published an article in the Austrian Academy of Sciences journal Biosystematics and Ecology on the oyster-like odor of the plant, Mertensia maritima. This plant has a circumboreal oceanic distribution where it grows just above the high-tide mark, most often on exposed maritime shingle bars. Because of the smell of crushed plant leaves, it is called the oyster plant in Britain and Ireland, and oyster leaf in North America. Wood collected this plant in Homer, Alaska and is the first person to identify the chemical that gives this plant its common names.
Emeritus Chemistry Professor William Wood recently published an article in the Austrian Academy of Sciences journal Biosystematics and Ecology on the oyster-like odor of the plant, Mertensia maritima. This plant has a circumboreal oceanic distribution where it grows just above the high-tide mark, most often on exposed maritime shingle bars. Because of the smell of crushed plant leaves, it is called the oyster plant in Britain and Ireland, and oyster leaf in North America. Wood collected this plant in Homer, Alaska and is the first person to identify the chemical that gives this plant its common names.