Rather belatedly in our look at animals and seed dispersal, we have our Darwin connection (after all, what biological item would be complete without mention of that venerable Victorian vegephile, Charles Darwin?). If your habitat is devoid of elephants or chimpanzees (see parts 2 and 3 of this series), what other animals could the intrepid […] More
Unusual nuclei, with spindle-like tubular projections, in the placental tissue of Utricularia nelumbifolia may be involved in nucleus-to-cell-to-cell communication. More
Marcos Buckeridge explains how death and destruction in sugarcane roots can lead to the development of gas spaces, which improve root function. More
Sun-loving plants react to changes in light quality caused by neighbouring plants via “shade avoidance” responses, including vertical elongation, upward orientation of leaves and reduced branching/tillering. Such responses are favoured by natural selection because they increase the fitness of individuals, but they can be disadvantageous for crops because they reduce the allocation of resources to […] More
Having reached mammals in our meanderings, and the human involvement in global plant dispersal (admirably explored in Michael Pollan’s book The Botany of Desire) notwithstanding, we couldn’t ignore our nearest and dearest living relative, the critically-endangered chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes verus), in this curious catalogue of –chory. Kimberley Hockings et al. report on the dispersal of […] More
Why are anthers where they are? A new study finds there might be more to anthers than purely functional tools. More
Actions aimed at reforesting arid areas around the world are becoming increasingly complex. In a recent study published in AoB PLANTS, Carevic et al. evaluated the physiological resistance to drought stress of Prosopis (mesquite) seedlings from different collection sites in the Atacama Desert, northern Chile. Their results show that seedlings from the most hyperarid habitats […] More
Yasuhiro Uehara and Naoto Sugiura describe a new mutualistic relationship between a cockroach and Monotropastrum humile (Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society 185: 113–118, 2017; https://doi.org/10.1093/botlinnean/box043). [M. humile is a mycoheterotrophic herb [a plant that obtain nutrients from mycorrhizal fungi that are attached to the roots of a photosynthetic vascular plant], which is another interesting […] More
As organisms that are mainly fixed in one place, plants have a problem if they are to extend their range and spread to new areas by production of a new generation. This fixedness of plants is also a barrier when it comes to exchanging genetic material between individuals during sexual reproduction and producing that next […] More
The best chance of growing to maturity is to have the best start. A new theory connects seed and leaf size with phytomers to describe the relationship between regeneration and growth through a plant’s lifetime. More
What is it that gives bamboo its rapid growth? One team has been looking for the answer not with the fastest plants, but with the slower variants to see what they lack. More
Our weekly email The Week in Botany continues. Here’s the one we sent out on Monday, November 13, 2017. If you want to get this earlier, you can sign up for it here. Sections: From Botany One | News | Scientific Papers It’s been a busy week for me, though the good news from that […] More
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