The Venus and the Ayoba Peach pincushion protea, two of the dozens of species farmed in South Africa’s Cape Floristic Region. Credit... Photograph by Esther Choi.

The whole genome of the king protea (Protea cynaroides) has been sequenced, a first for an indigenous plant in the Cape Floral Kingdom. At about 1.18 gigabases (Gb) long there are more than 1.18 ...