Plants & People
Argentina, more than football: outstanding and passionate Women in Plant Science
A movement to improve opportunities for women in Argentina may be growing to cover more of Latin America.
Ecosystems
How does environment affect biodiversity? Did Humboldt get it right?
Modern botanists have revisited sites examined by Alexander von Humboldt. Have modern advances made the German polymath’s work irrelevant?
Reviews
An extraordinary book about trees (and people)
Nigel Chaffey reviews a book about Trees, but is there agreement about what a Tree is?
Cells, Genes & Molecules
Does the fungus Botrytis cinerea break plants with a sledgehammer or a series of specialised tools?
The fungus Botrytis cinerea can infect many plants, but how can it get past so many different defences? Does it have a variety of tools or one highly effective tool?
Close Encounters
Flowers play a key role in flight control for bumblebees
A bee can approach a flower from any direction, but markings on the flower help guide bees in the most effective way, like a natural air traffic control.
Close Encounters
A parasitic plant can cause an invasive plant’s allies to switch sides
Scaldweed, Cuscuta grovonii, can prevent an invasive plant from using soil microbes to help invade territory – and the parasite can even become more vicious by using those same microbes against its invasive host.
Taxonomy & Evolution
Botanists say the largest amber-preserved flower is a new species
The flower, first discovered over 150 years ago, has yielded new clues from its pollen.
Cells, Genes & Molecules
How does the corpse flower’s scent change over time?
The Titan arum produces a smell like rotting flesh. Now botanists have analysed the chemicals and found that the smell changes over the two days that the plant flowers.
Growth & Development
Botanists find a cool way to preserve an endangered plant’s seeds
If you wonder how cool cool is, it’s at least -196 ℃ (-320 ℉).
Reviews
The geek’s guide to weird and wonderful plants
“Plants continually excite and surprise me” says Michael Perry. but how does Nigel Chaffey feel about Perry’s new book Hortus Curious?
Ecosystems
Pollinators like moths are increasingly missing from a warming subarctic
The complex relationships between plants and their pollinators in subarctic Finland have changed dramatically across the last century
Ecosystems
Yew Only Live Twice
Biologists have talked about bringing back extinct species like the dodo, but now botanists have drawn up a list of extinct plants that might be able to return to the wild.