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Plants

New Research

Spinach: The Superfood That Could Help Detect Bombs

Now more than Popeye’s favorite food, carbon nanotubes are turning the leafy green into a bomb detector

In search of distinctly American beer hops.

Wacky, Wonderful, Wild Hops Could Transform the Watered-Down Beer Industry

The diversity of hops reflects a diversity of tastes and traditions that are part of an extraordinary evolution in beer

These flowers may look beautiful, but in the imagination of Tamiko Thiel, they've turned hostile due to climate change.

Cool Finds

Augmented Reality Art Imagines What Could Be Seattle’s Weird, Bleak Future

Artist envisions mutant flowers and drone-like seaweed that may one day take over a post-climate change Seattle

Biddulph Grange Garden, Staffordshire‬

Step Inside 12 of England’s Most Beautiful Gardens

Researcher release bumblebees in a greenhouse at the Cambridge University Botanic Gardens

New Research

This Deadly Plant Virus Attracts Bees

The cucumber mosaic virus alters the scent of tomato plants to attract more bees to their ailing hosts

New Research

Research Reveals How and Why Sunflowers Turn Their Golden Heads

A new study shows sunflowers have an internal clock and face east to keep bees and other insects happy

These shaggy icons may be long gone by next century due to climate change.

Trending Today

California’s Joshua Trees Are Under Threat

Climate change could decimate the iconic tree for future generations

Yum.

Trending Today

Skip the Stench: Watch Three Massive Corpse Flowers Bloom Online

These tropical flowers only bloom once every four to five years

Illustration of a Velafrons, a hadrosaur whose name means "sailed forehead."

Chew on This: Powerful Jaws Fueled a Jurassic Herbivore Boom

Teeth, not flowers, might be the key to the duckbills’ success

The Mertz Library hosts one of the world's largest collections of material about plants.

Cool Finds

Go Inside New York’s Nearly Secret Botanical Library

It’s a gardener’s fragrant fantasy

A squash seedling (though not one of the ancient squash)

Cool Finds

An Ancient Squash Dodges Extinction Thanks to the Efforts of Native Americans

Indigenous people carefully tended an ancient squash for thousands of years and now the seeds are seeing a resurgence in popularity

Enlightened Hawaiian chiefs as far back as the 14th century instituted what is called the moku-ahupua‘a system of management throughout the islands.

Finding Lessons on Culture and Conservation at the End of the Road in Kauai

In the remote, tropical paradise called Ha‘ena, the community is reasserting Native Hawaiian stewardship of the land and sea

A furled chameleon tail obviously takes its shape from the rolling of a tube, but its pattern is distinct from that created by rolling an even tube, such as that of a garden hose. The gentle taper of the tail produces a logarithmic spiral—one that gets smaller, yet the small parts look like the large parts.

Art Meets Science

The Science Behind Nature’s Patterns

A new book explores the physical and chemical reasons behind incredible visual structures in the living and non-living world

Ginseng roots

The Fight Against Ginseng Poaching in the Great Smoky Mountains

A profitable black market for the native shrub pits the National Park Service against poor residents of Appalachia

Workers in Sumatra process an oil palm harvest from the plantation on the left even as the remnants of the natural peat swamp forest in the distance are burned to make way for new plantations.

Journey to the Center of Earth

The Mad Dash to Figure Out the Fate of Peatlands

As the planet’s peat swamps come under threat, the destiny of their stored carbon remains a mystery

New Research

Scientists Catalog Creatures in Every Corner of Los Angeles

In a huge citizen science project, scientists are turning to an urban environment to seek out biodiversity

When quinoa prices rise, do quinoa farmers starve?

New Research

Don’t Worry: Eating Quinoa Doesn’t Hurt Peruvian Farmers

A new study shows that the grain helps rather than hurts

New Research

Genes of Ancestral Peanuts May Help Feed the World

Researchers have sequenced the genome of peanuts and its ancient cousins, which could lead to disease and drought-resistant varieties

Perhaps Magnolia rzedowskiana should be renamed Magnolia interneta.

Cool Finds

Two New Flower Species Were Discovered Online

These naturalists didn’t know one another—but that didn’t keep them from discovering two new magnolias together

The highly regular spacing of fairy circles in Australia becomes visible in dense vegetation. The grasses in the foreground of the image are patchy as they rebounding from fire.

New Research

Mysterious Fairy Circles Have Been Found in Western Australia

Once thought to exist only in Namibia, circles spotted 6,200 miles away are helping sort out how these odd features form

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