1840

Charles Loring Brace; Lucy Elizabeth Porter [Brace]

1840 — Brace's mother, Lucy Porter Brace, dies when Charles is fourteen.

Phytophthora infestans

• Pre-1840s — P. infestans co-evolves with wild potato relatives in the Toluca Valley, central Mexico, its center of origin, where it undergoes frequent sexual reproduction alongside closely related species P. mirabilis and P. ipomoeae.
  • Source: Goodwin et al. (1994); Grünwald & Flier (2005), cited in Yoshida et al., "The rise and fall of the Phytophthora infestans lineage that triggered the Irish potato famine," eLife (2013) — https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3667578/
  • Quote: "The species is thought to originate from Toluca Valley, Mexico, where it infects wild relatives of potato, frequently undergoes sexual reproduction and co-occurs with the two closely related species P. mirabilis and P. ipomoeae." — Yoshida et al. (2013), eLife, Introduction.