Category: Amazing Plants

The adaptability and productivity of grass makes understanding this plant family critical for human survival, the scientists said. Someday, whether through genetic modification or selective breeding, scientists might be able to use these findings to produce other plants with four-celled stomata. This could also be one of many changes – to chloroplasts or enzymes, for…

Scientists made a surprising discovery on their mission to find better indicators for impending volcanic eruptions: it looks like tree rings may be able to predict eruptions. (Click on title for full story.)

Moore’s theory – which he presented at a redwood conference last month and hopes to publish next year – is that albino redwoods are in a symbiotic relationship with their healthy brethren. They may act as a reservoir for poison in exchange for the sugar they need to survive. (Click on title for full story.)

“This long record is really now painting a new picture that drought is probably more common than we thought in the tree ring records,” Dawson says. “So the redwoods are telling us a new drought story.” Embedded in the tree ring data is evidence of not one but three distinct cycles ranging from the yearly…

By studying the pitcher plant’s genome — and comparing its insect-eating fluids to those of other carnivorous plants — researchers have found that meat-eating plants the world over have hit on the same deadly molecular recipe, even though they are separated by millions of years of evolution. “We’re really looking at a classic case of…

This time in Earth’s history was a bit of a catch-22 situation. It wasn’t possible to evolve complex life forms because there was not enough oxygen in the atmosphere, and there wasn’t enough oxygen because complex plants hadn’t evolved – It was only when land plants came about did we see a more significant rise…

The late date of this discovery of Africa’s tallest trees may be due to the comparably low study efforts at Kilimanjaro compared with other biodiversity hotspots. Since only a few square kilometers of this habitat of Entandrophragma are left, Kilimanjaro (and Africa) is about to lose not only a unique biogeographical archive with highly diverse…

paleoecological interpretations have been rooted in understanding of modern angiosperm-dominated ecosystems. One key example is tree evolution: although often thought to reflect competition for light, light limitation is unlikely for plants with such low photosynthetic potential. Instead, during this early evolution, the capacities of trees for enhanced propagule dispersal, greater leaf area, and deep-rooting access…

If you are a plant, when life aboveground turns harsh, you have few options. Some orchids respond by going dormant, spending years to decades underground before reemerging aboveground. But an army of the right fungi may help jolt them out of dormancy, ecologists discovered in a new study (Click on title for full story.)

These cyanobacteria use the entire cell body as a lens to focus an image of the light source at the cell membrane, as in the retina of an animal eye, Although researchers are not sure what the purpose of this mechanism is, its existence suggests that a similar one could have evolved in higher plants.…