From Flowers That Smell Like Stressed Bees To Corn That Smells Like “Help Me!” October 2016 seemed to feature an unusual number of quirky plant news stories. For example, we previously saw an orchid that smelled like body odor, presumably to attract mosquitos. Now here’s another weird flower smell… “A…
From The Current State of The World’s Plants To How Plants Conquered The Land May 2016 was an especially rich month for fascinating reports about plant research. So, let’s get on with it…. What is the current state of plants…on a global scale? A major report regarding this question was…
A Flowering Uber? Batman has the Batmobile. Dr. Who has the Tardis. Is it possible that the protein that triggers flowering in plants also has its own special transport vehicle? A paper from Prof. Hao Yu’s lab at National University of Singapore published in the 6 June 2016 issue of…
Why Do Flowers Smell? A couple of the most common questions that people have about flowers are: (1) Why do flowers have scents? and (2) Why do many flowers smell good to us? The first question is fairly easy to answer, but the second one is a bit trickier to…
Where Does The Daffodil Flower’s “Trumpet” Come From? An answer to this question can be found in a 2013 report published in The Plant Journal (please see Ref. 1 below). The full text of this article is now available online (thanks to the Wiley Online Library), and I’ve read it…
Signature Scents of Death & Decay In a previous post, we explored the discovery that plants emit a wide array of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and that, because of this, sometimes plants stink. But I think few would argue that the prize for the “stinkiest” plants would have to go…
Since the daffodils are out in full force here in the upper left-hand corner of the U.S., I decided to revisit this post from 2013 and revise it a bit. Hope you enjoy it (again?)…. Doesn’t the Scientific Study of Flower Development Ruin the Aesthetic Beauty of Flowers? Here’s the…
Hothouse Flowers Unlike animals, plants are not born with their “naughty bits”. That is, the sexual organs of plants, a.k.a., flowers, are typically formed after a period of so-called vegetative growth. In other words, plants first go through a vegetative stage of development (think shoots and leaves, over and over…
Flower Power Growing in the rain forests of Borneo and Sumatra are some very unusual parasitic plants that produce the largest individual flowers so far discovered. These flowers can be over 1 meter (3 feet) wide and weigh over 9 kilograms (20 pounds). This flower also has a very strong…
Much Maligned. Highly Underrated? The common dandelion that you often see in the spring in North America is, most likely, Taraxacum officinale. How dandelions reproduce by cloning themselves and how herbicides kill dandelions, but not your lawn are two subjects I’ve previously explored here. But if you’d like some more…