Plants
Chinese money plant leaves hide a mathematical pattern
Tiny water-secreting pores appear to organize the major veins of the plant leaves into an arrangement known as a Voronoi diagram.
Plants
More Stories in Plants
- Animals
This tree is number one for cloud forest mammals going number two
The strangler fig is a keystone species in the tropics, providing food and shelter, and a place to poop for 17 different mammal species.
- Plants
Check out 6 ways orchids use tricks to reproduce
This spring, these six orchids will lure pollinators with mimicry, scent or other unusual strategies.
- Plants
Tree tops sparkle with electricity during thunderstorms
Ultraviolet cameras captured faint electrical flashes from leaves and branches as storm charges built up in the atmosphere.
- Plants
Chickpeas can grow in moon dirt and make seeds
Chickpeas produced seeds in simulated lunar soil, offering clues for future space farming.
- Plants
'In Botanical Time' explores the ways Earth’s oldest plants cheat death
Author Christopher Woods unpacks the science behind ancient plants’ longevity in a new book.
- Plants
Plants packed close enough to touch are more resilient to stress
Signals transmitted via leaves can warn neighboring plants of stressful events, making the group collectively more resilient than plants in isolation.
- Plants
In a new kind of plant trickery, this yam fools birds with fake berries
Black-bulb yam’s mimicry tricks birds into spreading its berrylike clones. The plant's novel strategy helps it spread without seeds or sexual reproduction.
- Animals
An all-female wasp is rapidly spreading across North America’s elms
The elm zigzag sawfly has spread to 15 states in five years. Now it's attacking the tree that cities planted to replace Dutch elm disease victims.
- Climate
Hidden tree bark microbes munch on important climate gases
Trees are known for absorbing CO2. But microbes in their bark also absorb other climate-active gases, methane, hydrogen, and carbon monoxide.
