Botany
- 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.
- How plants heal wounds: Mechanical forces guide direction of cell divisionphys.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...
- Plants Find Light Using Gaps Between Their Cells | Quanta Magazinewww.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.
- Back from the dead: Tropical tree fern repurposes its dead leavesnews.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
- Genetic control of thermomorphogenesis in tomato inflorescences - Nature Communicationswww.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...
- What Plants Hearnautil.us What Plants Hear
They sense the buzzing sounds of pollinators, the vibrations of the wind.
- Back from the dead: Tropical tree fern repurposes its dead leaveswww.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 ...
- Plants That Are Predators (Published 2015)www.nytimes.com Plants That Are Predators (Published 2015)
Carnivorous plants like the Venus flytrap capture prey, and minds, with their deadly allure.
- The mystery of the mimic plantwww.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.
- Flowers ‘giving up’ on scarce insects and evolving to self-pollinate, say scientistswww.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.”
- Comparing iNaturalist to herbarium data, and other storiesbotany.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.
- An amazing poster series on the natural history of plantszenodo.org Grün, Steine, Erde. Unsere Welt im Wandel.
Bebilderte Ausstellung zur Entstehungsgeschichte der Pflanzen - vom Beginn des Lebens in den Ozeanen, zur Eroberung des Landes über die atemberaubende neue Vielfalt der Pflanzen bis hin zu uns Menschen und den dramatischen Auswirkungen des Klimawandels heute.
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.
- Take a break from your screen and look at plants − botanizing is a great way to engage with life around youworldsensorium.com Take a break from your screen and look at plants − botanizing is a great way to engage with life around you
Take 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...
- MSU plant biologists shed light on 144-year-old seedy mysterymsutoday.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 ...
- 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.
- 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/
- Parasitic plant convinces hosts to grow into its own flesh—it's also an extreme example of genome shrinkagephys.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.
- *A Careful Selection of Whisk Ferns* (1837)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.
- Plants don’t have ears. But they can still detect soundwww.economist.com Plants don’t have ears. But they can still detect sound
Sometimes they produce it, too
- The Artichoke Blossom, an Exploding Castleworldsensorium.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...
- A Deep-Rooted Prairie Mythprairieecologist.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…
- Plant ID Guide
A wonderful guide for long car rides.
- Spreading Our Wings: iNaturalist is Now an Independent Nonprofitwww.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...
- 407-Million-Year-Old Fossilized Plant Bamboozles Scientists By Not Following Fibonacci Sequencewww.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.
- 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.
- Why Beans Were an Ancient Emblem of Death
> 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.”
- "Virtual Leaf" Unveils Hidden Realities of Plant Physiologybotany.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.
- ‘Mind-boggling’ palm that flowers and fruits underground thrills scientistswww.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
- How an 1800s Midwife Solved a Poisonous Mysterywww.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