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Category: Amazing Plants

  • Red Flowers May Not Signal Love

    The colour red acts as a warning to large vertebrate herbivores like emus, parrots and kangaroos that the flower contains distasteful or even poisonous cyanogenic compounds. It seems that Western Australian plants have not only developed a remarkable defence against would-be flower predators, but that they also clearly advertise the fact.

  • Discriminating Bees Sniff First, Drink After

    The study suggests that a bee's ability to associate floral scent with the best nectar may be the key to understanding how floral scent has evolved in flowering plants.

  • Why Do Male Flowers Have The Fragrance?

    This was a surprise in fundamental plant biology …If you ask people where the perfume of a flower comes from, they'll likely say the female parts or the petals.

  • Orchids Can Still Surprise

    Oh my God, you've found the missing link. Everyone's been trying to find evolution in action.

  • Trees Can Make Their Own 911 Call

    It turned out that a slight difference of acidity between tree and soil creates an imbalance of hydrogen ions, generating voltage. The next question was: What could be done with such limited power?

  • A Device To Smell Plants’ Pain

    Scientists are using an electronic nose tailored to eavesdrop on plants that have been damaged or are under attack. The nose successfully discriminated among the various distress signals different plants emit, depending on the pests plaguing them.

  • If Bananas Were Spheres and Tomatoes Were Cylinders

    What is the difference between apples and oranges? Why is a banana shaped like a banana? The question might seem esoteric, suitable only for researchers with ovate-shaped heads. But the answer, if it can be fully formed, promises profound and widespread applications.

  • Plants Take Their Own Aspirin

    Plants in a forest respond to stress by producing significant amounts of a chemical form of aspirin, scientists have discovered.

  • Vine Design The Same The World Over

    Vines were twisted in one direction not by global effects but by molecular-level biology… the fact that scientists had never noticed the preference of vines to twist to the left showed how little was known about the botanical world.

  • Leaves Set Their Own Thermostat

    Tree leaves do a pretty good job of achieving temperatures that are just right for photosynthesis, even if it's too hot or too cold where they live, a new study shows.