A novel machine learning-based study using digitized herbarium collections provides insights into the relationship between leaf size and climate across different plant species, and demonstrates the benefit of human...
Author - Alun Salt
Alun Salt
An invasive plant thrives on the edge of fire
Botanists discover unexpected ways in which controlled fires can influence plant diversity, including the puzzling persistence of certain invasive species.
The Missing Plants of the Palaeolithic
Prehistoric peoples moved in a world where intimate knowledge of plants would have been vital, so why don't they appear in European Cave Art?
Botany One & AI
AI authors are like predictive text on your phone. They help writing words, but are less good at sentences and cannot be used for writing whole articles at the moment.
Goth Rabbits spread Vampire Plants
Rabbits tend to nibble on vegetation rather than dry fruits, but the black Amami rabbits of Japan seem to be eating the fruits and spreading the seeds of an unusual plant.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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 ℉).
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.
Streetlamps create an artificial summer for urban trees
The long days of summer are stretching into winter, with LED street lights replacing the retreating sun.
In Madagascar, the lemurs need the trees, and the trees need the lemurs
Hikori Sato explains why a living forest isn't just a collection of trees.
Learn how to look at Lichen
April Windle presents The Wonderful World of Lichens: Introduction to Saving Devon's Treescapes
