Nigel Chaffey discovers a glossary can also be a page-turner.
Tag - New Phytologist
Nigel Chaffey
How do orchids get a taste for fungi?
You may have heard the phrase "you are what you eat", but some scientists are tracking the evolution of new diets in orchids by taking the phrase literally.
Alun Salt
The 3 Ps of plant science publishing
Mr Cuttings hears of a new journal launched this summer, and is appropriately excited.
How do you grow a palm? The secret’s in the soil.
An investigation on a tiny island reveals that microscopic fungi can dictate the destiny of giants, opening the possibility of mycorrhizal-driven speciation.
Altruistic plants?
There’s been a thoughtfulness* of books recently that reflect on aspects of plant intelligence – e.g. Daniel Chamovitz’s What a Plant Knows, Anthony Trewavas’ Plant Behaviour & Intelligence, Richard Karban’s Plant...
Nature Plants: an appreciation [or, Now we are Three…*]
A review of 'Nature Plants', the latest offering from the Nature Publishing Group.
Cause for optimism (maybe not…)
There’s an insufficiency of people to grow the new crops that aren’t being identified because of the dearth of plant taxonomists. Where will it all end..?
![Image: Hu et al., 2014. Annals of Botany 113: 181–189. [http://aob.oxfordjournals.org/content/113/1.cover-expansion]](https://i0.wp.com/botany.one/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/05-Feb-SIZED-align-left.jpg?resize=585%2C300&ssl=1)
Your botanical ‘one-stop shop’
There are plant biology journals that seem to concentrate on a single taxon (you know the ones I mean!) – e.g. The Plant Journal and The Plant Cell. There are others devoted to the molecular biology of plants, such as...
Everything benefits from a little lift
Roots generally absorb water from the soil and transport it above ground to the stem, branches, etc. Where the soil is too dry for water to be absorbed by the roots, the roots might actually lose water to the soil and...
Spotlight on macronutrients : Carbon (mainly)
Whilst members of the Plant Kingdom might dominate terrestrial biomes, non-Plant Kingdom members are the major photosynthetic organisms in aquatic habitats
Soil to roots to stem to atmosphere…
Studies show that fog water diffuses directly through leaf cuticles of Drimys brasiliensis and is transported through the xylem to below ground.
The positives of parasitic plants(!)
Parasitic plants tend to get a bad press. Unfairly?
An over-abundance of nitrogen…?
Nitrogen is an essential macronutrient for plants – they cannot complete their life cycle without it – and is needed in relatively large amounts.
Fire
Picking up on my elemental theme, fire has long been considered a major influence on evolution of the angiosperms, whether natural or anthropogenic conflagrations. This incendiary interaction has not been helped by...
