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>Scientists found and has been detected the progesterone hormone female sexuality, in the walnut tree. This discovery shook the knowledge of the differences between plants and animals. (Plant sexuality covers the wide variety of sexual reproduction systems found across the plant kingdom)

Previously, scientists thought only animals that can make progesterone. Steroid hormones secreted by the ovaries, progesterone serves to prepare the uterus for pregnancy and maintaining pregnancy.

The discovery is reported in the American Chemical Society’s Journal of Natural Products.

“The significance of the unequivocal identification of progesterone cannot be overstated,” the article by Guido F. Pauli and colleagues, states. “While the biological role of progesterone has been extensively studied in mammals, the reason for its presence in plants is less apparent.” They speculate that the hormone, like other steroid hormones, might be an ancient bioregulator that evolved billions of years ago, before the appearance of modern plants and animals. The new discovery may change scientific understanding of the evolution and function of progesterone in living things.

Scientists previously identified progesterone-like substances in plants and speculated that the hormone itself could exist in plants. But researchers had not found the actual hormone in plants until now. Pauli and colleagues used two powerful laboratory techniques, nuclear magnetic resonance and mass spectroscopy, to detect progesterone in leaves of the Common Walnut, or English Walnut, tree. They also identified five new progesterone-related steroids in a plant belonging to the buttercup family.