Maidenhair trees, Ginkgo biloba, can live for over 1,000 years and grow 35m tall. While they’re beautiful to look at, they’re also notorious for their vomit-smelling seeds.
Allium schoenoprasum, better known as chives.
Andreas Rockstein/Flickr
Plants need light to feed themselves, so they grow in ways that help them collect as much of it as they can. Sometimes that’s straight up, but not always.
Tree sunburn tends to occur during hot spring days or in early summer, when trees are full of moisture. So why does it happen? And which trees are most vulnerable?
Increasing numbers of people are choosing plant-based diets.
Pxhere
Menus that are three-quarters vegetarian help meat eaters choose more climate-friendly options, a tactic that restaurants could use to help fight climate change.
A climate measuring station in Chile’s Atacama desert.
Alexander Siegmund
This hardy desert plant lives in the hostile Atacama Desert in Chile by sucking moisture out of passing fog. As water resources become ever more scarce, humans could follow suit.
Many living organisms generate and even detect static electricity in their natural environments. We must understand more to ensure we don’t disturb these delicate processes.
Plants are more than background foliage in our busy lives. Our relationship with plants supports human health and well-being in many ways.
(Sarah Elton)
Plants support human health not only in terms of providing food, oxygen and shade. Our relationships with plants facilitate political decisions and actions that support health in the city.
An extract of a plant’s fruit in Nigeria could protect against seizure and prevent brain degeneration. It could therefore be studied further for the development of a new antiepileptic drug.
Many threatened plant species aren’t being targeted for conservation. Identifying which are closest to being lost forever is the first step to protect them.