Growth & Development
Seminal roots help maize grab nutrients
When humans selected for bigger seeds in maize, they may have also unintentionally improved its root system.
Close Encounters
What happens when pollinators bring the wrong pollen?
Surely once insects have brought pollen to a flower, then plant-plant interaction is over? Not so, says Gerardo Arceo-Gómez, who argues that heterospecific (or other plants’) pollen arriving in a flower might affect plant diversity.
Growth & Development
Mutant clover reveals the connections between carbon and nitrogen fixation for legumes
These results suggest that the super-nodulation phenotype per se did not limit growth.
Growth & Development
Groping in the soil for nutrients encourages root growth
In addition to root proliferation, the root response to a nutrient-rich patch was also accompanied by root hair elongation.
Close Encounters
Cuando cuidar a los polinizadores es literalmente materia de cuidado personal
La polinización manual es sorprendentemente común en la producción de cultivos comercializados globalmente, incluyendo algunos de gran importancia económica.
Growth & Development
In cold weather, rice pollen suffers in a variety of ways as it struggles to develop
A team of botanists in Japan have overturned decades-old assumptions about how cold stress leads to pollen sterility in rice.
Growth & Development
Foliar nutrient allocation patterns in Banksia attenuata and B. sessilis
Banksia attenuata and Banksia sessilis are in the same genus, but their life strategies reflect how they react to poor nutrition.
Plants & People
Botany provides a tool for defeating art fraud
How do you know that your antique violin really is as old as the seller claims? A close examination of plant cells in the body of the violin could help catch a counterfeiter.
Growth & Development
Improving roots for crops could improve habitats for wildlife
New research finds that root capturing more nutrients could help wildlife breathe many miles away.
Plants & People
When looking after pollinators is literally a matter of self-interest
Hand pollination is a surprisingly common form of pollination in global commercial crop production, including for some economically important plants.
Close Encounters
Honey bees are bad news for some plants in search of pollination
Some people fixate on honey bees as essential for pollination. Reality is more complicated. For one species, honey bee visits actively harm its chances of pollinating a partner.
Growth & Development
Creosote branches dance, even after death
Scientists watching the daily movement of branches in the creosote plant have found that even dead branches move to respond to changes in the air.