Plants
These plants seem like they’re trying to hide from people
A plant used in traditional Chinese medicine has evolved remarkable camouflage in areas with intense harvesting pressure, a study suggests.
Plants
More Stories in Plants
-
PlantsHow Venus flytraps store short-term ‘memories’ of prey
Glowing Venus flytraps reveal how calcium buildup in the cells of leaves acts as a short-term “memory” that helps the plants identify prey.
-
LifeThis parasitic plant eavesdrops on its host to know when to flower
Dodder plants have no leaves to sense when to bloom, so the parasites rely on a chemical cue from their hosts instead.
-
PlantsNew Guinea has more known plant species than any island in the world
In the first verified count of plants on New Guinea, a team of 99 botany experts identified more than 13,600 species.
-
LifeWild bees add about $1.5 billion to yields for just six U.S. crops
Native bees help pollinate blueberries, cherries and other crops on commercial farms.
-
PlantsThis parasitic plant consists of just flashy flowers and creepy suckers
With only four known species, Langsdorffia are thieves stripped down to their essentials.
-
TechBubble-blowing drones may one day aid artificial pollination
Drones are too clumsy to rub pollen on flowers and not damage them. But blowing pollen-laden bubbles may help the machines be better pollinators.
-
LifePollen-deprived bumblebees may speed up plant blooming by biting leaves
In a pollen shortage, some bees nick holes in tomato leaves that accelerate flowering, and pollen production, by weeks.
-
ChemistryAncient recipes led scientists to a long-lost natural blue
Led by medieval texts, scientists hunted down a plant and extracted from its tiny fruits a blue watercolor whose origins had long been a mystery.
-
ChemistryBeets bleed red but a chemistry tweak can create a blue hue
A new blue dye derived from beet juice might prove an alternative to synthetic blue dyes in foods, cosmetics or fabrics.