The Week in Botany October 19, 2026

My Spanish remains poor. I thought I'd spotted an interesting story in El Pais. To be fair, it was an interesting story in El Pais, but just before adding it to the list something knocked at my brain reminding me that salud does not translate as salad, even if auto-correct thinks it should. I've also excluded the story from the Onion on corn being named the world's sexiest plant, because there's nothing beyond the headline.

There will be another email sharing what we've posted, as well as the stories you're sharing on Mastodon and Bluesky, and career postings at the usual time.

Until then, take care,

Alun (webmaster@botany.one)

On Botany One

The True Pollinators of the Amazon’s “Purple Gold”
A study reveals that native stingless bees drive pollen flow in açaí crops, highlighting why standing forests are vital to agricultural yields.

The species that blushed when it was discovered
Pinguicula brendae was identified as a new species by its unusual leaves.

Can Small Pellets Help Mosses Rebuild Degraded Soils?
Turning moss fragments into small pellets can aid their establishment, but taking this strategy from the laboratory to the field remains a challenge.

From Sacred Crop to Mr Potato Head: What Art Reveals About Our Relationship with Food
By examining how artists portrayed potatoes across cultures and centuries, researchers show how our relationship with one of the world’s most important crops has shifted from reverence and reliance to convenience and comedy.

There was also Science Shared, Sudoku Garden celebrated a Japanese harvest festival, and Alluaudiopsis marnieriana was plant of the week. You can also see last week's Week in Botany too.

In AoBC Publications

• Neural Processes with Normalizing Flows for Wheat Height Estimation
• Interspecific variation in nectar and pollen reward among plant species commonly planted to support pollinators
• When sporangia became seeds: The innovation that rewrote land plant evolution
  

News & Views

Rhizobial Treasure Hunts
From the Swiss Alps to the Sahara, new twists in an old symbiosis — and new opportunities to discover them.
medium.com

Aspens ‘remember’ past drought in their leaves - @theU
Research uncovers how chemical compounds that protect aspens from insects and pathogens rise and fall in response to drought.
attheu.utah.edu

Shrubs benefit from being functionally more conservative and distinct from neighbor trees
Sai Peng, Chen Chen, Helge Bruelheide, Pablo Castro Sánchez-Bermejo, Anpeng Cheng, Xianglu Deng, Sylvia Haider, Shan Li, Yi Li, Ting Tang, Yujie Xue, Haoru Yan, Bo Yang, Bernhard Schmid, Keping Ma,…
fesummaries.wordpress.com

Exploring how plants thrive in a changing environment
MIT Associate Professor David Des Marais’ plant research spans molecules and mountain ranges, exploring everything from individual genes to how climate change will impact populations.
news.mit.edu

Stinky American plant cleared from Buckinghamshire river
The plant is said to smell like "rotting meat" and is is native to swamps and other wetlands in the Pacific Northwest.
bbc.co.uk

Interview with James Drever, BSBI Data and Digital Support Officer
Today's interview is between Miky Drees (MD), BSBI Communications Volunteer, and James Drever (JD), our Data and Digital Support Officer. James joined the staff in 2023 and his role is to support the collection and use of botanical data, provide guidance and training, and contribute to the development of the BSBI’s websites.
bsbi.org

Exploring Bogland, with the Queen of Peat | joegardener®
Dr. Merritt Turetsky, an ecosystem ecologist known as the “Queen of Peat,” joins me to explore the remarkable world of bogs.
joegardener.com

Shining a Light on the Underground Life of Plants | Faculty of Arts and Sciences
Dartmouth-led research finds warming can slow how tree roots feed soil microbes, part of a broader push to study the many underground strategies plants use to survive.
fas.dartmouth.edu

Sod’s law: what can two turf swaps 40 years apart tell us about Britain’s biodiversity crisis?
In 1983, David Nash dug up a section of Kensington Gardens and swapped it with Welsh grassland. Four decades later, Mike Perry’s reverse swap revealed a striking reversal in the fortunes of urban and rural nature.
theguardian.com

Spain strengthens forest resilience with new national network for forest genetic conservation 
Spain has strengthened its National Network of Genetic Conservation Units, designating 298 forest areas across 20 tree species to safeguard genetic diversity, supporting restoration, breeding and resilient forest management amid environmental change.
euforgen.org

Science Shared

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

1. Gene functional-state covariance reveals modular structure in the Arabidopsis thaliana dispensable genome
Bird, K. A. et al. · bioRxiv · 1 post · 104 likes · 42 reposts on Bluesky

Classical multilocus theory predicts that selection acting on combinations of loci can maintain non-random associations among allelic states, causing selection to act on multilocus genotypes rather than individual alleles. Across eukaryotic species, pangenome studies have documented thousands of genes that vary in functional status between individuals, yet this variation is analyzed as if each gene evolves independently. Here we test for non-random association within the dispensable pangenome across 1,012 natural genotypes of Arabidopsis thaliana to better understand the structure and evolution of eukaryotic pangenomes.

Discussed on Bluesky by @stairwaytokevin.bsky.social.

2. SRF3 couples cellular iron homeostasis and defense responses through ubiquitin-dependent nano-organization
Platre, M. P. et al. · Science Advances · 1 post · 48 likes · 23 reposts on Bluesky

Here, we identify a rapid iron regulatory mechanism centered on the plasma membrane receptor kinase STRUBBELIG RECEPTOR FAMILY 3 (SRF3), which integrates bacterial immune signaling with ferrous iron homeostasis. Perception of flagellin triggers a burst of reactive oxygen species that induces a rapid and transient depletion of the labile ferrous iron pool. This state promotes SRF3 ubiquitination and clathrin-dependent endocytosis, a process required to restore intracellular ferrous iron levels while dampening immune responses.

3. Advances in single-cell proteomics: label-free quantification of over 3500 protein groups from individual Arabidopsis thaliana seedling cells
Stolze, S. C. et al. · Plant and Cell Physiology · 2 posts · 39 likes · 20 reposts on Bluesky

Recent single-cell omics studies in plants, primarily focused on gene expression and its regulatory landscape, have underscored the importance of monitoring cell-type-specific responses, as well as cellular heterogeneity and distinct cell states within the same cell type (Nobori, 2025). Protein abundance and activity are not always reflected by transcript levels, highlighting the potential of single-cell proteomics to provide complementary insights into plant biological systems.

You can see the full list with more details at Science Shared: October 17.

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 60 other jobs posted at Botany One.

Cover Image: Sweetcorn on a Yellow background by Alfo Images / Canva