Plants
-
Tree diversity not just in rainforests
Other unique lineages need protecting.
Rainforests get the headlines, but other forests also are home to thousands of unique and important tree species, new...
-
How plants help make their kids stronger
Research suggests we can intervene without GM.
Inactivating a single gene can induce a form of "stress memory" in plants that is then inherited by some progeny, mak...
-
Fossil captures plants in transition
A new old species from an important time
Scientists have discovered an ancient plant species they say provides another piece in the evolutionary jigsaw. Th...
-
Tree rings tell of water and climate change
Scientists compile a global water-use efficiency database.
By unlocking the secrets of tree rings, scientists have created a global database of trees’ water-use efficiency, whi...
-
Plants grow brightly with mushrooms
Scientists say DNA creates sustainable light.
It’s feasible to create plants that produce sustainable luminescence that we can see, scientists suggest. Cred...
-
A medieval mystery solved
Scientists now understand things old and blue.
This is the fruit of the medicinal herb Chrozophora tinctorial and a lot of effort has been made to understand its ma...
-
Old trees do the heavy carbon lifting
Rainforest study points way for regeneration and management.
When it comes to storing carbon, an increasingly vital function of rainforests for the health and survival of the pla...
-
How some flowers recover from injury
It’s a newly discovered adaptation to enhance survival.
Some flowers have a remarkable capacity to pick themselves up – literally – after an accident, according to a study p...
-
Borneo’s worrying divide
Mapping reveals the impact of changing forest structure.
Aerial mapping of Malaysian Borneo has revealed worsening carbon losses along forest edges, according to a new US stu...
-
Conversation
Fungi networks boost bushfire recovery
They can efficiently influence all aspects of plant ecology.
The unprecedented bushfires that struck the east coast of Australia this summer killed an estimated one billion anima...
-
The co-evolution of plants and humans
Botanical historian puts new twist on plant domestication.
We think we’re so clever, but perhaps we underestimate plants. Edible flora have long evolved ways to move seeds a...
-
Human disturbance affects Amazon plants
Study points to changes in dispersal and seed traits.
Detailed research in the Brazilian Amazon has shown that human disturbance has a significant impact on plants, reduci...