Several fungi had distributions extending into central and northern parts of the continent, illustrating their tolerance of an extraordinarily wide range of environmental conditions.
Tag - mycorrhiza
Juniper Kiss
Basal orchid cheats on its fungal partner
Apostasia nipponica is the first member of the early-diverging orchid clade found to be using this strategy.
Erin Zimmerman
Merlin’s magnificent mushroom masterpiece
A fascinating book examines fungi not as something apart from the rest of the world, but as something intertwined with other life on the planet.
Nigel Chaffey
Spider orchid conservation: the importance of serendipitous fungi
Mycorrhizal fungi can be isolated from related common species to propagate threatened Caladenia.
Going below ground: how some of the diversity in plant root morphology arose
A major transition in plant growth habit may have driven evolution of certain root traits
Liam Elliott
Orchid conservation must be guided by an understanding of their ecology
What makes orchids unique can also make saving them a challenge.
How fungi oxygenated the Earth
Now that’s an eye-catching headline, isn’t it? The thought of mushrooms and toadstools – that famously don’t produce oxygen, unlike green plants with their oxygenic photosynthesis – adding oxygen to the planet’s...
Orchid populations and endophytic fungi change with rainfall and prescribed burning in Pterostylis
Wildfires are common in seasonally dry parts of the world with a Mediterranean climate. Prescribed burning is used to reduce fuel load and fire risk, but information on its effects is often lacking. Jasinge et al...
botanyone
Meet the real fungi…
Fungi: A Very Short Introduction, by Nicholas P. Money, 2016. Oxford University Press. As much as I would like to think that plants are the most important organisms on planet Earth, even I have to admit that fungi are...
Plant records: Can a plant be too trusting?
Name: Orchids Scientific name: Family: Orchidaceae Known for: Beauty, epiphytism, providing vanilla flavouring, tiny seeds, mycorrhizae, deceptive pollination, mycoheterotrophy, medicinal usage, vegetating Krakatoa…...
Experiments versus real-world studies
How close are experiments to nature? The answer isn't clean cut, partly because nature is messy.
An orchid with a partially mycoheterotrophic taste for truffles
Partially mycoheterotrophic nutrition is a widespread trophic strategy in green-leaved Orchidaceae species in forest habitats. Owing to the light limitation of their habitats, many forest orchids meet carbon demands...
Colletotrichum comes good
A relative of a notorious fungus that infests beans may have positive advantages for some other plants.
Plants, given a helping hand
I’ve been known to remind my students that just because testing demonstrates presence of e.g. ‘phosphate’ in a soil sample that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s in a form that can be accessed/utilised by plants. And...
