Editing Adaptive radiation (section)

====Hawaiian silverswords====
[[File:Young_silverswords,_Haleakala.jpg|thumb|A mixture of blooming and non-blooming Haleakalā silverswords (''Argyroxiphium sandwicense macrocephalum'').]]

Adaptive radiation is not a strictly vertebrate phenomenon, and examples are also known from among plants. The most famous example of adaptive radiation in plants is quite possibly the Hawaiian [[Argyroxiphium|silverswords]], named for alpine desert-dwelling ''[[Argyroxiphium]]'' species with long, silvery leaves that live for up to 20 years before growing a single flowering stalk and then dying.<ref name="Olsen" /> The Hawaiian [[silversword alliance]] consists of twenty-eight species of Hawaiian plants which, aside from the namesake silverswords, includes trees, shrubs, vines, cushion plants, and more.<ref name="Baldwin" /> The silversword alliance is believed to have originated in Hawaii no more than 6 million years ago, making this one of Hawaii's youngest adaptive radiation events.<ref name="Baldwin" /> This means that the silverswords evolved on Hawaii's modern high islands, and descended from a single common ancestor that arrived on [[Kauai]] from western North America.<ref name="Baldwin" /> The closest modern relatives of the silverswords today are California tarweeds of the family [[Asteraceae]].<ref name="Baldwin" />