This botanical pill gives a brief overview of the evolutionary history of land plants, from their origin in aquatic habitats (when green algae crawled out of water) Million Years Ago to their amazing diversification in...
Tag - plants
Michela Osnato
Hot termites, cold fungi, warm sharks
From the warmth of termites hastening wood decomposition to the surprising chill of fungi, our understanding of nature's temperature regulation gets a shake-up.
Nigel Chaffey
Plants parade for passport picture
A survey invites the public to suggest plants and animals for illustrating Ireland's passports, showing one way to raise appreciation for nature's diversity.
Plants’ plan preserves people and planet
The Nation of Plants, by Stefano Mancuso 2021. Other Press. Who’s in charge of the Earth? Aside from religioso-spiritual responses to this question, the mantle of this awesome responsibility appears to be have been...
Plants, Humans and War! A triangular affair.
Pichersky, E. (2018). Plants and Human Conflict. CRC Press,206p. At first glance, ‘Plants and Human Conflicts’ looks like a simple book, with a single banana crop on its cover. This 189-page book is written by Dr Eran...
S.Suresh Ramanan
Visually stunning: Flora for juvenile – and adult – fauna
Flora: Inside the Secret World of Plants by DK [Dorling Kindersley] with contribution by Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, 2018. Dorling Kindersley. Dorling Kindersley’s Flora: Inside the secret world of plants [hereafter...
From Emerald Planet to Eden with Prof. Beerling
Making Eden by David Beerling, 2019. Oxford University Press. Almost 12 years ago I reviewed David Beerling’s previous book The Emerald Planet. I was very impressed with that slim, but information-packed, volume; I’m...
The dramatic results of botanical engagement
What is the point of teaching, if someone isn’t going to use that knowledge? A new paper by Bethan Stagg addresses that with a study that not only looks at how well students can learn, but also encourage them to...
Alun Salt
When plant biology meets physics…
Great things are possible when disciplines that may be studied separately and distinctly are brought together. For example, and famously, when botany, zoology, bacteriology, mycology, protistology, virology, chemistry...
All the world’s plants are in here (well, almost…)
Plants of the World: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Vascular Plants by Maarten JM Christenhusz, Michael F Fay and Mark W Chase, 2017. Kew Publishing/University of Chicago Press. One of the great botanical pleasures I...
What do you know about leaves???
Nature’s Fabric: Leaves in Science and Culture by David Lee, 2017. University of Chicago Press. Ever so occasionally one comes across a book that makes one think, “That’s the book I’d like to have written”. Well...
What is the true language of plants?
The Language of Plants: Science, Philosophy, Literature, by Monica Gagliano, John C. Ryan and Patrícia Vieira (Editors), 2017. University of Minnesota Press. Monica Gagliano et al’s “The Language of Plants” [hereafter...
