Posts tagged as Plants
Hurry Up And Name These Things Before They Die
"It was once the lingua franca of science, used to name animals and plants with precision. But now botanists will no longer be required to provide Latin descriptions of new species. The move is part of a major effort to speed up the process of naming new plants – because in many cases it is feared they might die out before they are officially recognised."
A Longing For Heather (And Heathcliff)
In the life of any gardener, there comes a day when you're forced to admit that no matter how much you worship a certain plant, it's just not going to work for you. There are any number of reasons this might happen: insufficient light, space, or some other factor that makes your garden not to the plant's liking. In these cases, it's likely you've spent many a precious dollar on such plants, even after all the evidence points conclusively to failure: They looked so healthy and vibrant at the nursery! You want to redeem yourself for the last batch you killed! You forget how demoralizing it was to watch that plant wither away over the course of a season or two, despite your unconditional love and constant ministrations. It's also natural, as the years go by, to think that your increasing botanical experience (you may even use the word "wisdom") may lead to success this time around. You say to yourself, well, my hellebores are thriving, why can't I grow heather? You vow to do better, you remember your dream of cultivating an entire field of heather. This despite the fact that your garden is a 15-by-30-foot rectangle in which you've already planted twenty-five deciduous trees, hundreds of ferns, a redwood and a stand of bamboo. READ MORE
One Day Soon, Ferns Will Rule the World
As we head into the late days of November, at least here in the region around New York City, most of the ferns have turned sallow and dry, so that it’s difficult to believe that only a few months ago, they formed a lush, dense carpet of shadowy green on forest floors everywhere. While it’s tempting to be taken in by these superficial signs of frailty and expiration, do not be deceived: those of us who spend time with ferns understand that they are plotting, and one day soon will again rule the world. READ MORE
Plant Eats Tit
"A plant has killed and 'eaten' a blue tit at a garden nursery in Somerset. Nurseryman Nigel Hewitt-Cooper, from West Pennard, was inspecting his tropical garden when he discovered one of his pitcher plants had trapped the bird. He said he was 'absolutely staggered' to find it had caught the creature. It is believed to be only the second time such a carnivorous plant has been documented eating a bird anywhere in the world."
A Tree Peony (The Lives They Lived)
Like so many from the old country, my parents were hard workers. They led quiet lives and poured their hopes into their offspring, of whom I was the eldest. READ MORE
New Improved Plants Will Save Us From Ourselves
Okay, Science: you got us into this mess. (Well, not really. You just made the discoveries. But what was Industrialism gonna do? Not exploit them to the detriment of the planet?) It's up to you to get us out of it. Make us some of those carbon-eating plants. READ MORE
The Pavlovsk Experimental Station
Earlier today, to absolutely no one's surprise, a Russian court decided to let a state-backed residential development fund proceed with its plan to build houses on a field in Pavlovsk, outside St. Petersburg. The reason this mundane matter even reached a court is that the field is presently inhabited by thousands of rare fruits and berries, better known as the historic gene bank of the Pavlovsk Experimental Station. READ MORE
Science: Plants Better At Remembering Things Than Older Women With Big Butts
Scientists in Poland have discovered that plants encode information they get from various types of light and use it to immunize themselves against seasonal blight. Professor Stanislaw Karpinski led a team of biologists at the Warsaw University of Life Sciences in shining colored lights on plants and then testing the plants' resistance to disease. Plants have "a specific memory for the light which builds its immunity against pathogens, and it can adjust to varying light conditions," he said to the BBC's Victoria Gill. "So the plants perform a sort of biological light computation, using information contained in the light to immunise themselves against diseases that are prevalent during that season." That's amazing! READ MORE
Brussels Sprouts Definitely Trying To Figure Out Way To Send Wasps To Lay Eggs Inside Humans That Will Eat Us From Within
"Plants are not static or silly. They respond to tactile cues, they recognize different wavelengths of light, they listen to chemical signals, they can even talk." That's Monika Hilker, of the Institute of Biology at the Free University of Berlin, to Natalie Angier in today's Science Times. Like Stevie Wonder, and Michael Pollan, Angier shows how plants demonstrate a sort of will to live that she thinks might give ethical vegetarians pause. (Which is really just kind of mean. Those people are already so hung-up. And the poor Jains.) But the interesting stuff is in the evidence. The "talking" Hilker cites takes the form of volatile chemicals released into the air as "cries for help" when a plant is being eaten. Say, by a caterpillar. Angier writes: "Such airborne alarm calls have been shown to attract both large predatory insects like dragon flies, which delight in caterpillar meat, and tiny parasitic insects, which can infect a caterpillar and destroy it from within." READ MORE
