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Painting the mountains blue

20 Apr 2012

Vera Thoss tells Elinor Richards about her bluebell business and research, using her car in her experiments and analysing whale vomit

Vera Thoss is an environmental chemistry lecturer at Bangor University, UK. Her research is based on ecological chemistry, which addresses processes mediated through specific compounds within ecosystems and environmental chemistry, which is concerned with the impact of human activities on the environment

What inspired you to become a scientist?
It all started when I was 13 and I had my first chemistry lesson. I instantly took to the subject and from then my mind was made up. I was also curious and wanted to ‘understand the world’.

What projects are you working on?
Currently, my group is working on oil pollution, composting and plant-derived products. It seems a bit of a stretch but it is all part of carbon cycling: plants build precious molecules, most of the time these remain intact but may transfer into air, water or soil. Crude oil is the remnants of sunken forests. So in the end, all the chemistry comes from plants photosynthesising and creating complex fragrances, tastes and colours. It is fascinating.

What discoveries have you made during your research on bluebells?
Bluebell seeds have a high oil content and the oil has an unusual composition. Even though this is the first chemical assessment of Hyacinthoides non-scripta oil, the chemistry is not earth-shattering. The ecology aspects gave room for more discoveries, for example we found seed stores on the site, meaning that possibly voles or shrew have collected the seeds for storage. This has never been reported before.

Tell us about your bluebell conservation efforts and how your research can help.
We are hoping to show that bluebell seeds can be a source of fine chemicals. We obtain an oil of unusual composition from the seeds. The residue contains iminosugars, which may be of use in future medicines. I am hoping that the compounds isolated from bluebell seeds will be of commercial value, which in turn means that the conservation of bluebells pays for itself. We are hoping to paint the mountains and woodlands blue again.

Find out more about the Vera Bluebell farm and the BEACON and PROBECO projects in Chemistry World

Link to journal article
Triacylglycerol Composition of British Bluebell (Hyacinthoides non-scripta) Seed Oil
Vera Thoss , P J Murphy , Ray John Marriott and Thomas Wilson
RSC Adv., 2012, Accepted Manuscript, DOI: 10.1039/C2RA20090B

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Bluebells, Bangor and biodiesel

17 Apr 2012

Each Spring, on a farm set against the beautiful backdrop of the Snowdonia mountain range in North Wales, Vera Thoss is rewarded with a sight that makes the view even better – an impressive carpet of bluebells covering the land. Vera encourages the growth of the wild British bluebell (Hyacinthoides non-scripta) on her farm and is the only licensed bluebell seller in Wales.

But there is another side to her: Vera is an environmental chemistry lecturer at Bangor University and she’s been studying the composition of bluebell seeds, together with Patrick Murphy and colleagues, to determine how they could be used in the future.

With an eye to this, the team determined the fatty acid composition of the seeds using 1H and 13C NMR and GC-MS. The seed oil is highly unsaturated (>85%), contains 20% gondoic acid (cis-icos-11-enoic acid, which is found in fish and vegetable oils) and an unusually high proportion of fatty acids with 20 or more carbon atoms. This particular composition indicates that one application of the seeds could be as a biodiesel source, they say.

bluebells-snowdonia-national-park_shutterstock_300

Bluebells growing in the Snowdonia National Park

Read the full article on the Chemistry World blog

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