Elastic fantastic: The deadly fluid of pitcher plants

Flies check in, but they don’t check out, thanks to liquid laced with stretchy sugars that keep them tangled up

Rewilding (and high density agriculture)

Man-made ecosystem: Ascension Island

Why do Oregon farms plant red clover every spring?

If you’re ever out on a bike ride with me and you ask an innocent question like “hey, what’s with all the red plants on farms?” I must warn you that because of my masters degree in soil chemistry (that has laid fallow for over 30 years), I will go full Cliff Clavin on you…

Who Killed the Florida Orange? Deep in Desiccated Groves, I Saw Some Haunting Answers.

The powerhouse of American citrus is suffering a brutal decline. Everyone has a theory about why.

Hunting for the world's most mythical cannabis: Big Sur Holy Weed

California is racing to save historic cannabis strains before legalization erases them.

Hunting for the World's Most Mythical Cannabis: Big Sur Holy Weed - Longreads

"California is racing to save iconic cannabis strains before legalization kills them."

Saving the Venus Flytrap: How One Woman Rallied a Town Around Its Weirdest Attraction – Garden & Gun

Despite their outsize hold on popular imagination, Venus flytraps are native to a tiny corner of the globe: the Coastal Plain of the Carolinas. As development threatens, one town—spurred on by one tireless botanist—has taken up the shovel to save the world’s most fascinating…

China Has Added Forest the Size of Texas Since 1990 - Yale E360

Scientists Are Just Beginning to Understand How Life Makes Clouds, and Their Discoveries May Drastically Improve Climate Science

Plants, plankton and sea spray all release elements that help the atmospheric blankets form

Olive trees

A fast-spreading bacteria could cause an olive-oil apocalypse.

How To Build A Thousand-Year-Old Tree

"A set of experimental techniques and technologies that might seem harmful to trees is actually helping ancient forests survive."

Why These Tropical Trees Love a Lightning Strike

One species of tropical tree seems not only to survive lightning strikes but also to thrive because of them

The Problem With Darling 58

The fight to save America’s iconic tree has become a civil war.

As Wildfires Grow Fiercer, Some Companies Look to Rebuild the Tree Supply C

As forests succumb to ever-fiercer wildfires, the federal government and some adventurous private companies are trying to resuscitate an industry.

The Extraordinary Lives Of Coast Redwoods

Oddities, marvels and revelations proliferate in groves of the tallest trees on the planet.

This forest generates billions of dollars without felling a single tree

Cork oaks are making homes warmer, cars lighter and clothes biodegradable — while still feeding the birds and absorbing carbon.

The Astounding Origins of Chaco Canyon Timber

Chaco Canyon Great Houses have timber of more than 200,000 massive log beams. Where Ancestral Puebloans got the wood is no longer a mystery.

The Ancient Order of Bali

In 1970s Bali, a sudden rice crisis prompted an unexpectedly far-reaching scientific discovery

A journey to Earth's most remote flower

Tagimoucia is so rare that it only grows on one of Fiji's 330 islands, it's found high atop a steep mountain ridge and it blooms for less than three months a year.

The Beautiful, Brutal World of Bonsai

An American undergoes a gruelling apprenticeship to a Japanese master.

Why Prehistoric Herders Didn't Spit Out Their Watermelon Seeds

Thousands of years ago, Saharans ate the kernels before the fruit became sweet

Meet Nature’s Apex Regenerator: The Mighty Baobab Tree

The oldest relationship between humans and ancient trees naturally occurs in Africa. The continent’s longest-lived tree is the largest, too. Amazingly wide for its height, a mature baobab appears o…

Phantom Forests: Why Ambitious Tree Planting Projects Are Failing

High-profile initiatives to plant millions of trees are being touted by governments around the world as major contributions to fighting climate change. But scientists say many of these projects are ill-conceived and poorly managed and often fail to grow any forests at all.

At Old Coal Mines, the American Chestnut Tries for a Comeback

Across Appalachia, scientists and foresters are trying to reintroduce a hybrid version, helping to revive damaged land while also bringing back a beloved tree.

Why an American chestnut tree in Centreville is the 'holy grail' for conservationists

The American chestnut tree used to grow throughout the eastern U.S., but was devastated by a blight in the early 20th century.

Into the Forbidden Forest

Famed American biologist Patricia Wright explores an astonishing breadth of biodiversity in the wilderness of Madagascar

Can Planting a Trillion New Trees Save the World?

To fight climate change, companies and nonprofits have been promoting worldwide planting campaigns. Getting to a trillion is easier said than done.

Mapping Urban Trees Across North America with the Auto Arborist Dataset

Posted by Sara Beery, Student Researcher, and Jonathan Huang, Research Scientist, Google Research, Perception Team Over four billion people live in...

Meet the Yucca Whisperer of West Texas

Near Fort Stockton, Hoven Riley has been quietly growing more than 20,000 of the prized plants, which are being illicitly uprooted from public and private lands to meet a growing demand.

Does turmeric’s reputation translate into real health benefits?

Clinical trials show that curcumin, present in the spice, may help fight osteoarthritis and other diseases, but there’s a catch – bioavailability, or how to get it into the blood

Sonoma County farm finds first truffle - Los Angeles Times

The Alexander Valley Truffle Farm has found its first truffle almost a decade after planting its truffle orchard in Geyserville, Calif.

The Incredible Fig

The fig is an ecological marvel. Although you may never want to eat one again.

The Strange Quest to Save North America’s Most Elusive Oak Tree

How one 90-year ecological mystery reveals the complexities of conservation—and the problems with the “endangered species” approach.

The Deep Roots of the Vegetable That ‘Took Over the World’

A study digs up the origin of the single species that gives us turnips, bok choy, broccoli rabe, and more.

The birthplace of the modern apple - BBC Travel

When a Russian scientist identified the Malus sieversii as the progenitor of the domestic apple, harvests in Kazakhstan’s forests were bountiful; now this wild fruit is threatened.

The American West's sagebrush sea is rapidly vanishing

Once considered a rangeland weed, this plant is the cornerstone of America’s desert ecosystems

https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/2021-2-march-april/feature/demise-and-potential-revival-american-chestnut

The Golden Guide to Hallucinogenic Plants: Discover the 1977 Illustrated Gu

I mean, the idea that you would give a psychedelic—in this case, magic mushrooms or the chemical called psilocybin that's derived from magic mushrooms—to people dying of cancer, people with terminal diagnoses, to help them deal with their - what's called existential distress.

The Mystery of Mistletoe’s Missing Genes

Mistletoes have all but shut down the powerhouses of their cells. Scientists are still trying to understand the plants’ unorthodox survival strategy.

An 'Extinction Hotspot' in Appalachia

The discovery of a lost plant species highlights the need to protect other endangered species in one of the most biodiverse regions in the U.S.

The Role of Wind in a Tree’s Life

By Anupum Pant Remember the biosphere 2? In short, it’s a miniature version of our planet, now owned by the university of Arizona, constructed for scientists to study how the planet’s l…

Why plants don’t die from cancer

Humans and other mammals and birds would have been killed many times over by Chernobyl's radiation that plants in the most contaminated areas received. So why is plant life so resilient to radiation and nuclear disaster?

The Mysterious Life (and Death) of Africa’s Oldest Trees

On the plight of the baobab tree.

Arborists Are Bringing the 'Dinosaur of Trees' Back To Life

Arborists are cloning saplings from the stumps of the world's largest, strongest, and longest-lived trees -- felled for timber more than a century ago -- to create redwood "super groves" that can help fight climate change. "Using saplings made from the basal sprouts of these…

Dandelion seeds fly using ‘impossible’ method never before seen in nature

Nature - The seeds contain a lot of open space, which seems to be the key to sustaining flight.

The minds of plants

From the memories of flowers to the sociability of trees, the cognitive capacities of our vegetal cousins are all around us