Articles tagged as Plants | Smithsonian Magazine

To find out what's going on outside, people love to search for it online.

Bird Migrations, Floral Blooms and Other Natural Phenomena Cause Seasonal Spikes in Wikipedia Searches

A new study has found that pageview trends for various plants and animal species correspond to real-world seasonal patterns

March 6, 2019

Art Meets Science

Dornith Doherty’s Mesmerizing Photos Capture the Contradictions of Seed Banking

“Archiving Eden,” now at the National Academy of Sciences, shows how guarding against an ecological catastrophe is both optimistic and pessimistic

February 19, 2019

New Study Showcases Three-Toed Sloth’s Unsung Adaptability

Juvenile members of the so-called “specialized” herbivore species draw on a more diverse diet than previously believed

January 23, 2019

Yutu-2 sets off on its inaugural journey.

The Cotton Plant That Sprouted on the Far Side of the Moon Has Died

China, which is manning the first probe to land on the lunar far side, was hoping to find out how plants fare in outer space

January 18, 2019

New Research

Flowers Sweeten Up When They Sense Bees Buzzing

A new study suggests plants can ‘hear’ the humming of nearby pollinators and increase their sugar content in response

January 18, 2019

Cool Finds

Restored Mughal Gardens Bloom Once More Along Agra’s Riverfront

Two of the 44 original historic gardens and structures have been rescued in an ambitious conservation project

January 15, 2019

Cool Finds

Could These Fossils Push Back the History of Flowers?

A study analyzing 200 tiny flowers from 174 million years ago suggests angiosperms were around during the Jurassic, but paleobotanists are skeptical

January 2, 2019

Varieties of maize found near Cuscu and Machu Pichu at Salineras de Maras on the Inca Sacred Valley in Peru, June 2007.

Rethinking the Corny History of Maize

A new genetic study traces the movement of one of the world’s most vital crops from Mexico to South America

December 14, 2018

The Georgia aster is one of many threatened plant species

Thousands of Little-Known Plant Species Are at Risk of Extinction

When researchers used machine learning to evaluate 150,000 plant species, they found that 10 percent were likely to qualify for the IUCN Red List

December 4, 2018

The cholla plant’s prickly proclivities actually serve a reproductive purpose

Researchers Stabbed Slabs of Meat With Cacti Spines to Learn About Puncture Strength

Barbed spines function much like porcupine quills, drawing on an overlapping shingled design to hook onto victims’ muscle fibers

November 28, 2018

Frost drought and extreme winter warming trigger a phenomenon known as "Arctic browning"

Extreme Weather Is Turning the Arctic Brown, Signaling Ecosystem’s Inability to Adapt to Climate Change

Vegetation affected by extreme warming absorbs up to 50 percent less carbon than healthy green heathland

November 27, 2018

How the Poppy Came to Symbolize World War I

The red flowers blooming on a battlefield in Belgium, inspired John McCrae to write the war poem “In Flanders Fields”

November 9, 2018

The Earth BioGenome Project promises to revolutionize biology

November 5, 2018

Seagrass plants have a large capacity for absorbing and storing carbon on the seafloor.

Underwater Meadows of Seagrass Could Be the Ideal Carbon Sinks

Many ecosystems absorb and store vast amounts of carbon dioxide, and seagrass is one of the most efficient natural carbon storage environments

November 1, 2018

A hot fall and excess rain robbed much of the East Coast of its annual leaf show

November 1, 2018

Gourds come in all shapes and sizes—some sweet and delicious, some stiff and bitter, and some that are just plain odd.

Halloween

The Science Behind Decorative Gourd Season

Gourds are the runts of their family of fruits, too tough and bitter to eat, but they remain one of the most popular crops of fall

October 26, 2018

Lavender’s Lovely Smell Soothes Anxious Behavior in Mice

In mice, at least, lavender may also be as effective at combating anxiety as commonly-prescribed medications

October 25, 2018

An annual $1.4 million funding grant will allow the International Rice Research Institute to help develop drought, heat- and flood-resistant rice varieties

October 15, 2018

New Research

Non-native tropical milkweed encourage year-round monarch populations which harbor a deadly parasite for the imperiled insect

September 11, 2018

Oils extracted from the citronella plant are a powerful mosquito repellent.

Why Plant-Based Mosquito Repellents Are So Hard to Make

Bug sprays with DEET feel oily and smell gross. But turning natural plant oils into commercial products isn’t easy

September 5, 2018