Darwin may indeed not have been referring to angiosperms broadly in his famous words to his friend.
Tag - Charles Darwin
Erin Zimmerman
Mum’s the word* in new plant book
Chrysanthemum by Twigs Way 2020. Reaktion Books Ltd. Despite being a declared lover of plants, I didn’t include ‘mums’ – as chrysanthemums are commonly known – amongst the plants that I consider most interesting. It was...
Nigel Chaffey
Darwin Day is coming and you can be part of it
Anyone can celebrate Darwin Day and promote science, without even leaving the house.
Alun Salt
Coping with phenol-rich foodstuffs
We rightly salute fungi and bacteria as being indispensable to the decomposition processes that breaks down dead organic matter into inorganic components that can then be recycled through the biosphere in those all...
Better together…
A study shows coral polyps actively generate micro-currents and eddies to promote nutrient inflow and exchange of materials using externally located cilia.
Classical texts re-imagined/re-imaged…
Do you remember the good old days when students read for a degree? Well, I don’t know how much proper reading they do these days – i.e. that which involves actually touching and turning the pages of a book or research...
Prizes for plant scientists
Why are botanical FRSs like buses? You wait for ages for one to come along, and then three appear at once! On a more serious note, great news that two of the staff at the UK’s Norwich-sited John Innes Centre (JIC, ‘an...
2013, International Year of the Wallace(?)
If 2009 ‘belonged’ to Charles Darwin then, if there’s any justice in the world, 2013 has to be ‘owned’ by Alfred Russel Wallace.
Suck on this: predictions and patience in phytobiology
One of the great strengths of the scientific method is its ability to make predictions that can be tested. One of the most famous of those predictions is Charles Darwin’s oft-cited 1862 inference that a long-throated...
Proof of phytological principle
Sadly, we don’t have time machines that would permit us to go back and see ancient evolution in action. So we have to make do with such devices and stratagems as inference, surmise, speculation, good honest-to-goodness...
Facing the music
Plants are daily subjected to myriad biotic and abiotic factors and have to respond appropriately to them or suffer the consequences. However, one factor they’ve probably not been subjected to for much of their...
