featured
Making soy better
Avid readers of the Botany One blog will no doubt be aware of The Story of Soy. Written by Christine du Bois it makes the compelling
Reviews
Roses (hip-hip hooray!)
Rose by Catherine Horwood 2018. Reaktion Books Ltd. Apparently, the rose is the world’s favourite flower. It’s not mine. I therefore seem to find
Plant Cuttings
Algal research that has its ups and downs…
Every so often you chance upon a scientific study that makes you think “What? That’s new or worthy of study (and publication…)?” I had that
Reviews
Bring on the birch!
Birch by Anna Lewington 2018. Reaktion Books Ltd. “Miserable, naked, hungry”. These three little words are used by the Phytophactor (the ‘nom de blog’ of Illinois
featured
Bread’s birth bested by 4400 years
Like many of you reading this item I suspect, I was taught that agriculture was ‘invented’ about 10,000 years ago in the so-called Fertile
featured
Mosses monitor polystyrene plastic pollution
Discarded plastic* is a major source of this planet’s pollution (“the action or process of making land, water, air, etc., dirty and not safe or
Reviews
We want yew!
The immortal yew by Tony Hall, 2018. Kew Publishing. Is the yew actually immortal? Certainly, trees can live for many thousands of years – e.g. 4,
Reviews
Plants are weird – and rather wonderful too!
Weird Plants by Chris Thorogood, 2018. Kew Publishing. There is a view that plants are sufficiently amazing in their own right that they don’t need
Reviews
Plant food and sex (lots of sex!)
Sex on the Kitchen Table: The Romance of Plants and your Food by Norman C Ellstrand 2018. University of Chicago Press. What comes to mind at
Plant Cuttings
Moths go batty
By way of introducing some mirth* to the otherwise rather doom-and-gloom-laden previous news item (A heart(wood)-warming tale of methanogens), this zoo-
Reviews
Plants bridging the gap(s)
Land Bridges: Ancient environmental plant migrations, and New World connections by Alan Graham 2018. University of Chicago Press. Why are the Earth’s terrestrial organisms found
Plant Cuttings
A heart(wood)-warming tale of methanogens
Mention of cave-dwelling plants living in extremis [see Uncovering underground Botany] brings to mind the real extremophiles of planet Earth, known – unsurprisingly! – as extremophiles. Although