Botanic gardens play a crucial role in conservation, especially with wild-collected plants, which support research and climate adaptation. Climate change threatens species survival, requiring a global network approach. Genetic diversity is key for resilience, and ethical plant collection is essential. Collaborative efforts ensure conservation success while maintaining biodiversity and sustainability.
Raking dead grass (thatch) helps native plants grow by improving light access, according to a study. In three-year tests, raking increased plant diversity, reduced invasive grasses, and boosted wildflowers. While it also raised some invasive wildflowers, raking offers a low-cost, eco-friendly method for restoring native ecosystems and reducing wildfire risks.
The sunflower family’s intricate evolutionary history, unveiled through genetic analysis, showcases the fascinating phenomenon of convergent evolution. Flower symmetry, a key trait, has independently evolved multiple times within this diverse plant group. Insights gleaned may aid in breeding plants with desirable traits, benefiting agriculture and horticulture.
Botanists explore Darwin’s theory on precise pollination in flowering plants. Their study reveals correlations between heterostyly, floral traits, and pollinators, supporting Darwin’s hypothesis. This macroevolutionary analysis sheds new light on the role of ecology in plant reproductive mechanisms.
In a botanical breakthrough, researchers unveil a new plant species, Relictithismia kimotsukiensis, discovered in Kimotsuki, Kagoshima Prefecture. Divergent from Tanuki-no-shokudai, it constitutes a new genus within the Thismiaceae family, signifying a rare find in Japan’s well-explored botanical landscape. With environmental threats looming, further ecological research becomes imperative.
A network of scientists across the globe have identified more than 700 plant genera named for women. This is a nearly 20-fold increase in the number of genera linked to women before the group started working on the list.
An team botanists has analyzed the morphological diversity of fossilized flowers and compared it with the diversity of living species. Their results were quite exciting: Flowering plants had already produced a large number of different flower types shortly after their emergence in the Cretaceous period, and this earliest floral diversity was greater than that today.
A new paper reveals that researchers have found unaltered agave plant species cultivated by several early cultures including the Hohokam people, a large Native American group in the Southwest that existed between 300 and 1500 CE.
Researchers study track how “flower power” survived mass extinction 66 million years ago to become the dominant plant type.
A long-lived monocarpic species of bamboo, Phyllostachys nigra var. henonis, only flowers once every 120 years before it dies. The upcoming flowering event for this species does not bode well for its continued long-term survival, as most flowers are not producing viable seeds.
