"We have some indication from very old literature that an unrelated plant might have the same adaptation," says Cornelissen. "If that can be confirmed, then snow roots have evolved at least twice independently."
The age of descriptive natural history is largely gone; we mine the knowledge of our predecessors.
We are now in an age of descriptive molecular biology.
Source: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17299-unique-roots-let...