If Brontë had lived in a warmer climate

This article in Science quotes Anne Brontë in the abstract:

A sharp discovery

Plant prickles are controlled by genes involved in the final step of cytokinin biosynthesis

by Elizabeth A. Kellogg

Science 1 Aug 2024 Vol 385, Issue 670 pp. 495-496

DOI: 10.1126/science.adr2473

In the words of English novelist Anne Brontë, “…he that dares not grasp the thorn / Should never crave the rose” (1). If Brontë had lived in a warmer climate, she might have written a similar line about wild eggplant, cucumber, or rice, species that all produce sharp pointed epidermal outgrowths called prickles (inaccurately called thorns in roses). Prickles function as a physical defense against herbivores. On page 514 of this issue, Satterlee et al.  report that homologous genes control prickle formation in all of these species—a discovery that addresses a major question in evolutionary biology about the origin of similar features in unrelated organisms, often as solutions to the same problem. The finding also provides valuable information for crop development and ecological investigation.