(1) The first chapter, When Flowers First Appeared on Earth. AI Herbarium, traces back to the origins and rapid diversification of flowering plants 135 million years ago, which Darwin (1879) called one of the greatest evolutionary “mysteries.”

This chapter explores a recent example of evolutionary radiation: the high-elevation Andean lupins, which have shown that evolution can happen much faster than previously thought.

This research draws on the invaluable lupin herbarium archives, collected over more than two decades by plant evolution scientist Colin E. Hughes at the Zurich Botanical Garden.

To understand recent rapid diversification in wild lupin species of the Andean mountains, an artistic experiment was carried out by training an AI model on one hundred herbarium specimens selected by the scientist.

First, the AI model ‘studied’ the shapes and colors of lupin inflorescences (the arrangement of flowers along the stem), and then learned to generate various forms reflecting different life history strategies.

The AI experiment resulted in the AI Herbarium image animation, which creates speculative appearances of future lupin species in times of climate change.