The Week in Botany June 8, 2026

Dearest TWiB Readers,

This week brings us an exciting first – a Botany One Focus Issue. The topic is Digital Botany and throughout June we are publishing three articles a week about how researchers are using digitisation to tap into the vast and rich specimen collections held around the world.

What hidden stories do these collections tell? What scientific advances can be made? Juniper Kiss, our guest editor, and her group of authors explore these questions in four main themes: Week 1, How Plants Become Data; Week 2, The Craft of Digitisation; Week 3, Hidden Stories in Collections; Week 4, From Digital Collections to Decisions.

So let us open the cabinets and bring these historical collections into a modern light and see what we can learn.

As Juniper writes: "Digital botany is not about replacing the wonder of plants and fungi with data. At its best, it helps us share that wonder more widely, connect knowledge more fairly, and make better decisions for this beautiful planet of ours."

Below, we also share the latest botanical news from Mastodon and Bluesky as well as career postings.

Until next time,

Sarah and Carlos (webmaster@botany.one)

On Botany One

Digital Botany Focus Issue:

Introducing Botany One’s Digital Botany Special Focus Issue

Why digital botany matters now

Botany OneJuniper Kiss

Turning Plants into Data: A Deeply Human Experience

Before a plant becomes a digital record, it passes through the hands of collectors, taxonomists and curators. Scientists across Latin America reveal why turning specimens into data is part detective work, part history, and part botanical adventure.

Botany OneAna Valladares

Stephan Weise: How to Keep Track of 2 million crop collections

As crop collections become increasingly digital, EURISCO shows why conserving plant diversity means managing not only seeds, but also the data that give them meaning.

Botany OneGuest Author

How Digitisation Gives Specimens More Meaning: The Fungal Collections and Networks of Greta Stevenson

Natural history collections are historical repositories brimming with potential. Not only are plant and fungal specimens fundamental to scientific research, but they also give us insights into the places, people, and times involved in their collection. Thanks to worldwide digitisation efforts, we now have more power to detangle these stories

Botany OneBen Carson

Featured articles:

• The Fragrant Library: Can a Perfume Bottle Save a Rainforest?
• Lichens and Bryophytes Reveal the Effects of Urban Heat

Plant of the Week:

Vellozia sessilis

Once known only from its original description, Vellozia sessilis has been rediscovered and identified as a threatened species needing urgent conservation.

Botany OneCarlos A. Ordóñez-Parra

There was also last week's Week in Botany, with Martian sweet potatoes, floral snouts, and a researcher working on nature-based solutions for controlling nematodes.

In AoBC Publications

• An introduction to the fundamentals of root systems research in cultivated plants 🆓
• Does fire-induced bud mortality reduce phenotypic variability? 🆓
• Contrasting responses of pollen and fruit to whole-tree heating in two tropical savannah species 🆓
  

News & Views

‘An equal and habitable world is possible’: academics set out sweeping vision for planetary survival

Global report provides an alternative to climate breakdown, political extremism and economic tensions.

The Guardian

Killer fungus discovered that destroys UK invasive plant

A newly discovered species raises hope that some native British habitats could be restored.

BBC News

Food and agriculture: champions for the environment

Four examples of solutions that rethink and rebuild our agrifood systems sustainably.

Newsroom

Science Shared

Three botany papers widely shared on Bluesky this past week were:

1. The controls that got out of control 🆓
   Schneider, A. · EMBO Reports
2. Melatonin seed priming: A climate‐smart, green strategy to enhance abiotic stress tolerance in plants 🆓
   Raza, A. et al. · Journal of Integrative Plant Biology
3. Anticipate, acclimate, recuperate and remember: How spatiotemporal signal integration controls flooding stress resilience in plants 💰
   Rodriguez-Cisneros, C. et al. · Journal of Experimental Botany

You can see the top 20 with more details at Science Shared: June 6.

Careers on Bluesky

Please note these are not jobs I am offering. Nor can I help you with any visa requirements. At time of writing there are around 100 other jobs posted at Botany One.

Cover image: Dr. Jenifer C. Lopes holding a Vellozia specimen at Minas Gerais, Brazil. Photo by Jenifer C. Lopes.