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With more than 4700 laboratories around the globe using it, Arabidopsis thaliana is certainly the most prominent model organism within current plant biology. I distinguish between two ways of representing Arabidopsis, both of which are indispensable to the acquisition of knowledge about the plant. One is obtained via abstraction and results in highly conceptual representations, such as the schemas employed by The Arabidopsis Information Resource (the main digital repository for data about the plant) in order to systematise and integrate theoretical knowledge about Arabidopsis genomics and development. The other is obtained via standardisation of wildtype specimen of the plant and results in material representations, i.e. the semi-domesticated exemplars that are elaborated, produced and distributed by the two stock centres acting as world-wide providers of Arabidopsis seeds for research purposes.
A closer look at the history of these two types of representations shows how tightly their development has been intertwined. Still, I want to argue that keeping this analytic distinction in mind has a double epistemological function: (i) it fosters a comparative evaluation of the development and utility of models within experimental and theoretical domains, and (ii) it helps to identify and assess the different commitments (scientific, social, economic) with which plant biologists have to comply in carrying out their research.