Category: Amazing Plants
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Carnivorous Plants Evolve For Bigger Meals
…the advantage of being able to catch and digest larger insects may have driven the evolution of the snap traps' many specializations, including sensitive trigger hairs on the inside surface of each leaf and the ability to respond quickly to a potential meal — a Venus flytrap can snap a leaf shut in a fraction of a second.
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Evil Beauties: Orchids With An Agenda
Orchids are manipulative, self-centered, wily and sometimes downright sadistic. And yet insects and humans alike are ensnared — perhaps for those very reasons — by their ethereal beauty.
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A Symbiotic Relationship That Moves Mountains
Few plants can grow without soil and even fewer are capable of growing on nothing but bare rock.Yet some species of desert cactus manage this extraordinary feat, and now scientists have worked out how.
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Plants That Prey On Mammals
A new plant species has been discovered in the central Philippines – a giant carnivorous plant
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Cutting Edge Protection
Findings suggest that the most common role for crystals may be to act as a deterrent to herbivory, with different types of crystals performing different roles in protecting the plant.
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When Flowering Plants Re-Made The World
The flowers' secret… was to exploit a change in soil fertility, and create a feedback loop that allowed new flowers to feed off dead ones.
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Benefits Of Faking Illness
The plants feign sickness to stop it being attacked by insect pests known as mining moths, which would otherwise eat its healthy leaves.
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Secrets Of Maples’ Flight Revealed
A heavy body and lone, stubby wing seem unlikely features for an object trying to fly — but they help the seeds of maple trees travel thousands of meters from a parent tree.
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Flowers Just Want To Be Helpful
Flowers pollinated by insects have evolved special cells on their petals to help bees stay put while they are feeding.
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Not Depending On The Kindness Of Strangers
It is the only known plant in the world able to self-irrigate.