Botany One

Most woody plants grow flowers from new growth or shoots, but some species perform cauliflory – flowering from their main stems and mature branches. More commonly seen in tropical forests, cauliflory is rare in temperate species. Eastern Redbud (Cercis canadensis) is one of those rare examples. With beautiful pink flowers, this deciduous tree or shrub is native to North America. Its range include…

Science Shared will look a little different this week. Here's a round up of the top 10 papers you've been sharing this week on Bluesky. Papers behind a paywall are marked 💰otherwise they're free to access at time of checking. How this works We scan posts by people on the Botany Auto list and pull out the entries with links to papers. Every time a paper gets a post written about it it gets 4 point…

Pollinators are a vital link between biodiversity and human health, securing both essential nutrients and family livelihoods. While their decline threatens to deepen poverty and malnutrition, protecting local plant diversity offers a sustainable path to resilience.

By comparing flowers and leaves across 245 species, researchers reveal that flowers follow hidden water-use strategies shaped by the same environmental pressures as the rest of the plant.

Botany One interviews Dr Damilola Olanipon, a plant and microbial ecologist investigating the hidden fungal networks that connect plants, support forests, and help regulate Earth’s climate.

From ancient Roman seed-soaking recipes to modern nanopriming, seed priming could help crops germinate faster and survive drought, heat and salinity in a changing climate.

Pineapples, pumpkins, squash, sunflower, tobacco, maize, potatoes, tomatoes, vanilla and cacao – these are some of the world’s most recognizable crops – and they are all from the Americas. Introduced to Europe beginning in 1493, these crops had a direct impact on European society, culture and food, first as luxury goods for the royal and noble classes, and later on the general public's diet. “Beg…

Jonathan Curley found an oddity near San Francisco earlier this month. It looks like Aphyllon franciscanum, Yellow Clustered Broomrape. However, there’s something peculiar about this particular yellow plant. If you want to see Aphyllon franciscanum, then western North America is the best place to be, particularly around the coast. The native range runs from southwestern British Columbia down the …

Today is Constitution Day in Norway, a national day of celebration. Full independence from Sweden followed in 1905, making Norway one of Europe's younger sovereign nations and, perhaps not unrelatedly, one of the most enthusiastic about celebrating it. Norway runs from oak woods near 58° north to the high-Arctic ridges of Svalbard, with the Gulf Stream keeping its western coast unfairly mild and …

Here's a round up of the top 20 papers you've been sharing this week on Bluesky. Papers behind a paywall are marked 💰otherwise they're free to access at time of checking. How this works We scan posts by people on the Botany Auto list and pull out the entries with links to papers. Every time a paper gets a post written about it it gets 4 points. It gets 3 points for a repost and 1 point for a like…

It's another commemorative Sudoku Garden this week, celebrating the life of John Stevens Henslow who died on 16 May 1861. If you've ever walked through the Cambridge University Botanic Garden you've walked through one of his projects. As Professor of Botany he persuaded the university to move its cramped old physic garden out of the city centre to a new forty-acre site off Trumpington Road, then …

Botany One interviews Dr Diego Paredes-Burneo, a Peruvian botanist investigating how the extraordinary biodiversity of the Tropical Andes emerged through rapid and complex evolutionary processes.

I’ve chosen the common dandelion as this week’s plant because of a discussion I had with someone about dandelions in the lawn. My opinion is that if they weren’t so common, they’d be hailed as botanical wonders. It wasn’t a huge surprise to find that there were collectors in regions where it doesn’t grow naturally who do cherish the plant. Though, for reasons we’ll see, smuggling it into somewher…

Today is Día de las Madres in Mexico. It's a stretch to say that plants of Mexico are the mothers of many things you'll find in your kitchen: maize, beans, squash, tomato, chilli, avocado, vanilla, chocolate, dahlias for the garden, but they're certainly distant ancestors. Some of the plants have been chosen with Mothers' day in mind. The Boojum Tree was chosen because it's a Boojum Tree. How to …

This week: memories of floods, how could we find peer-reviewers more easily, and more.

This week’s Sudoku Garden celebrates the life of Professor William Stearn, who died 25 years ago today. Stearn was born in 1911, and left school 15 years later, taking a job at Bowes & Bowes bookshop in Cambridge. It was here where he read his way into botany while working in the shop. He would go on to become one of the titans of the field. Stearn's most famous book is Botanical Latin. Until ver…

New research shows that Dodonaea viscosa seeds rely on a tiny slit to let water in, and understanding how it opens could help germinate them.

Around the world, scientists are working to produce crops with better tolerance to environmental stress. For example, breeders are trying to get maize to thrive in challenging soils. But this challenge has its own challenge: roots are underground and therefore hard to study. As a result, even though roots are critically important to plant health – providing nutrients, water and structural support…

Last year, we spoke with Gláucia Silva following the publication of her widely discussed paper exploring new ways to engage students with plants through pop culture. Her work, linking botany with cultural references, sparked conversations far beyond the plant science community, reaching educators, students, and curious readers around the world. Now, one year on, we caught up with her again to see…

By testing how seeds respond to drought and smoke together, scientists uncover how plants in Brazil’s Cerrado survive the harsh mix of fire, dry spells and unpredictable rain.