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Arabidopsis thaliana, a small flowering mustard plant, normally reproduces sexually. But Jean Philippe Vielle-Calzada and his colleagues have show that silencing a protein called Argonaute 9 causes the plant to begin reproducing asexually instead. The blue shading shows the area involved in gamete formation that is disrupted when Argonaute 9 is silenced. (Credit: Jean Philippe [...]

ScienceDaily (Mar. 6, 2010) — In the tropics, carnivorous plants trap unsuspecting prey in a cavity filled with liquid known as a "pitcher."

Tropical exotic carnivorous pitcher flower, Nepenthes sp., waits for any small insect to close and eat it. (Credit: iStockphoto/Eugene Bochkarev)
The moment insects like flies, ants and beetles fall into a pitcher, the plant's [...]

Red hibiscus flower. (Credit: iStockphoto/Youssouf Cader)

ScienceDaily (Feb. 24, 2010) — The origins of flowering plants from peas to oak trees are now in clearer focus thanks to the efforts of University of Florida researchers.

A study appearing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences unravels 100 million years of evolution through an extensive analysis [...]

Microscope view of reaction wood fibres following looping (Red line zone)  CSA

It's not exactly Day of the Triffids but an arboreal moment of some significance, nonetheless.
The shuttle Endeavour's return to Earth on Monday (GMT) brought with it the first trees grown on the International Space Station (ISS).

The weeping willows were a Canadian-led experiment to try [...]

Phytoplankton. (Credit: NOAA MESA Project)

ScienceDaily (Feb. 4, 2010) — A team of University of Toronto chemists have made a major contribution to the emerging field of quantum biology, observing quantum mechanics at work in photosynthesis in marine algae.

"There's been a lot of excitement and speculation that nature may be using quantum mechanical practices," says chemistry [...]

ScienceDaily (Feb. 2, 2010) — As so-called primary producers, plants use solar energy to synthesize the foodstuffs that sustain other forms of life. This process of photosynthesis works in much the same way as the solar panels that supply energy for domestic heating. Like these, plant leaves must cope with variations in the level and [...]

Wild tobacco (Nicotiana attenuata), native in North America, is flowering during the nighttime and attracts night-active moths as pollinators by emitting the attractant benzyl acetone. However, as soon as female moths start laying their eggs on the plant and the young caterpillars become a serious danger, the plant postpones the opening time of the flowers [...]

Tree ferns and the countryside of New Zealand. (Credit: iStockphoto/Richard Goerg)

ScienceDaily (Jan. 23, 2010) — One hundred million years ago the earth looked very different from how it does today. Continents were joining and breaking apart, dinosaurs were roaming Earth, and flowering plants were becoming more widespread.

The southern hemisphere supercontinent known as Gondwana formed around [...]

Many gardeners swear you should not water in the midday because water droplets on plants can magnify the sun's rays and burn leaves. But the idea has never been rigorously tested, until now.

"This is far from a trivial question," said biophysicist Gabor Horvath at Eotvos University in Budapest, Hungary. "The prevailing opinion is that forest [...]

Arabidopsis thaliana. (Credit: iStockphoto)

ScienceDaily (Jan. 10, 2010) — Plants are incredibly temperature sensitive and can perceive changes of as little as one degree Celsius. Now, a report in the January 8th issue of the journal Cell, a Cell Press publication, shows how they not only 'feel' the temperature rise, but also coordinate an appropriate response [...]