Botany
- phys.org Genetic discovery delays peach bloom, safeguards crops from spring frost
In a pivotal advancement for fruit agriculture, scientists have pinpointed a gene mutation in peach trees that governs the timing of flowering, a trait critical for evading spring frosts. This genetic insight could transform breeding practices, enabling the development of late-flowering fruit variet...
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Calling for Some Interesting Botany Books
Every time I look more and more into botany and plants, I realize just how much I don't know. So I'm calling on you good people of Lemmy to give me some resources. Plus maybe we can add them to the sidebar or a pinned post for other people who are interested.
- phys.org How plants heal wounds: Mechanical forces guide direction of cell division
Plants are made up of very rigid cells. Much like bricks in a wall, this feature gives them the structural support to maintain their shape and to stand upright against gravity. However, just like any living organism, plants can be injured, for instance, by wind or animal grazing. While humans and an...
- www.quantamagazine.org Plants Find Light Using Gaps Between Their Cells | Quanta Magazine
A mutant seedling revealed how plant tissues scatter incoming light, allowing plants to sense its direction and move toward it.
- news.illinois.edu Back from the dead: Tropical tree fern repurposes its dead leaves
Zombie leaves? A species of tree fern found only in Panama reanimates its own dead leaf fronds, converting them into root structures that feed the mother plant. @LASillinois @DallingJim
- www.nature.com Genetic control of thermomorphogenesis in tomato inflorescences - Nature Communications
Mechanisms underlying changes in inflorescence development in response to high ambient temperature remain unclear. Here, the authors report the cloning of the MIB2, encoding a homology of SPATULA, and its activation of CONSTANS-Like1 for determining tomato inflorescence branching at high ambient tem...
- nautil.us What Plants Hear
They sense the buzzing sounds of pollinators, the vibrations of the wind.
- www.sciencedaily.com Back from the dead: Tropical tree fern repurposes its dead leaves
Plant biologists report that a species of tree fern found only in Panama reanimates its own dead leaf fronds, converting them into root structures that feed the mother plant. The fern, Cyathea rojasiana, reconfigures these 'zombie leaves,' reversing the flow of water to draw nutrients back into the ...
- phys.org Asparagus and orchids are more similar than you think: Cell wall reference catalog of 287 species created
What does an asparagus have in common with a vanilla orchid? Not much, if you are just looking at the two plants' appearances. However, when you look inside, their leaves are more similar than you would think, as revealed by the composition of their cell walls.
- www.nytimes.com Plants That Are Predators (Published 2015)
Carnivorous plants like the Venus flytrap capture prey, and minds, with their deadly allure.
- phys.org Plant roots mysteriously pulsate and we don't know why—but finding out could change the way we grow things
You probably don't think about plant roots all that much—they're hidden underground after all. Yet they're continually changing the shape of the world. This process happens in your garden, where plants use invisible mechanisms for their never-ending growth.
- www.vox.com The mystery of the mimic plant
There’s drama in the plant world — and a shape-shifting vine is at the center of it.
- www.theguardian.com Flowers ‘giving up’ on scarce insects and evolving to self-pollinate, say scientists
French wild pansies are producing smaller flowers and less nectar than 20 to 30 years ago in ‘startling’ act of evolution, study shows
Flowers are “giving up on” pollinators and evolving to be less attractive to them as insect numbers decline, researchers have said.
A study has found the flowers of field pansies growing near Paris are 10% smaller and produce 20% less nectar than flowers growing in the same fields 20 to 30 years ago. They are also less frequently visited by insects.
“Our study shows that pansies are evolving to give up on their pollinators,” said Pierre-Olivier Cheptou, one of the study’s authors and a researcher at the French National Centre for Scientific Research. “They are evolving towards self-pollination, where each plant reproduces with itself, which works in the short term but may well limit their capacity to adapt to future environmental changes.”
- botany.one Comparing iNaturalist to herbarium data, and other stories
How do citizen scientists compare with digitised herbarium data? A question asked by one of the papers we shared on social media over the past day.
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An amazing poster series on the natural history of plants
Produced by the MAdLand consortium and made publically accessible via Zenodo. The series was presented in exhibition form in several botanical gardens across Germany this summer. Only this German version exists, unfortunately.
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Take a break from your screen and look at plants − botanizing is a great way to engage with life around you
worldsensorium.com Take a break from your screen and look at plants − botanizing is a great way to engage with life around youTake a break from your screen and look at plants − botanizing is a great way to engage with life around you When you hear about the abundance of life on Earth, what do you picture? For many people, it’s animals – but awareness of plant diversity is growing rapidly. By Jacob S. Suissa & Ben....
- msutoday.msu.edu MSU plant biologists shed light on 144-year-old seedy mystery
Two years after Michigan State University plant scientists met at an undisclosed area on campus to dig up a bottle containing seeds buried more than 144 years ago by MSU botanist William J. Beal, molecular genetic testing has confirmed a hybrid plant was accidentally included among the seeds in the ...
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Why Is Everything an Orchid? Orchids were Darwin’s “abominable mystery.” They continue to elude science—and efforts to save them.
nautil.us Why Is Everything an Orchid?Orchids were Darwin’s “abominable mystery.” They continue to elude science—and efforts to save them.
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Ranunculus repens, aka the "Creeping Buttercup" sporting some drippy spots. 💅
Guide to ID UK buttercups: https://botsocscot.wordpress.com/2020/06/06/three-of-our-common-buttercups-telling-them-apart/
- phys.org Parasitic plant convinces hosts to grow into its own flesh—it's also an extreme example of genome shrinkage
If you happen to come across plants of the Balanophoraceae family in a corner of a forest, you might easily mistake them for fungi growing around tree roots. Their mushroom-like structures are actually inflorescences, composed of minute flowers.
- publicdomainreview.org *A Careful Selection of Whisk Ferns* (1837)
Curious two-volume illustrated book on bonsai which dispensed not only with the vessels but with the trees themselves.
- www.economist.com Plants don’t have ears. But they can still detect sound
Sometimes they produce it, too
- worldsensorium.com The Artichoke Blossom, an Exploding Castle
The Artichoke Blossom, an Exploding Castle By Sam Stoeltje Sign up for our monthly newsletter! In June, I crossed the Atlantic with my partner for a much-needed vacation. A leg of the trip brought us to Avignon, in southern France, where in the fourteenth century, due to the fluctuations of religiou...
- prairieecologist.com A Deep-Rooted Prairie Myth
Anyone familiar with prairies has likely seen drawings and photographs showing the incredibly deep root systems of prairie grasses and other grassland plants. The prairie ecologist J.E. Weaver, in…
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Plant ID Guide
A wonderful guide for long car rides.
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Sex lives of orchids reads like science fiction - An international team of scientists have created a global database of pollination data for almost 3000 orchid species.
www.latrobe.edu.au Sex lives of orchids reads like science fictionflowers, orchid, pollination, database, species, flowers, interantional,
- www.inaturalist.org Spreading Our Wings: iNaturalist is Now an Independent Nonprofit
We have exciting news! iNaturalist is now an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit. This is a big day for iNaturalist. Since launching in 2008, the iNaturalist team and organization has evolved, and we’re thrilled about this next milestone. iNaturalist began as a master’s project at the University of Cali...
- www.iflscience.com 407-Million-Year-Old Fossilized Plant Bamboozles Scientists By Not Following Fibonacci Sequence
Turns out it’s not as easy as 0, 1, 1, 2, 3.
Apologies for the silly clickbait headline.
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Interesting facts about beans (INTERDISCIPLINARY MEGATHREAD)
cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/986772
> Let's see how many interesting facts about beans we can bring together.
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> Pythagoras’s aversion to beans, though, always got a lot of attention, even from ancient writers. According to Pliny, Pythagoreans believed that fava beans could contain the souls of the dead, since they were flesh-like. Due to their black-spotted flowers and hollow stems, some believers thought the plants connected earth and Hades, providing ladders for human souls. The beans’ association with reincarnation and the soul made eating fava beans close to cannibalism. Aristotle, writing earlier, went much further. One possible reason for the ban, he wrote, was that the bulbous shape of beans represented the entire universe. Nevertheless, other Greeks ate plenty of fava beans, and Pythagorean beliefs were mocked. The poet Horace tauntingly called beans “relations of Pythagoras.”
- phys.org Helping plants and bacteria work together reduces fertilizer need, finds new study
Helping to promote the natural relationship between plants and bacteria could reduce reliance on environmentally damaging fertilizers, a study has found.
- botany.one "Virtual Leaf" Unveils Hidden Realities of Plant Physiology
The 'virtual leaf' that simulates leaf physiology in 3D, promises breakthroughs in understanding plant responses to environmental changes and boosting our agricultural strategies.
- www.theguardian.com ‘Mind-boggling’ palm that flowers and fruits underground thrills scientists
New species named Pinanga subterranea as Kew botanists admit they have no idea how its flowers are pollinated
- www.smithsonianmag.com How an 1800s Midwife Solved a Poisonous Mystery
For decades before Doctor Anna’s discovery, “milk sickness” terrorized the Midwest, killing thousands of Americans on the frontier