Botany

This Enzyme Is Why Onions Make You Cry

Figuring out the how the tear-inducing fumes form could give surprising insights into our own human proteins

How the Silk Road Created the Modern Apple

A genetic study shows how wild Kazakhstan apples dispersed by traders combined with other wild species to create today's popular fruit

Blue chrysanthemums

The Scientific Feat That Birthed the Blue Chrysanthemum

In a world first, scientists engineered the flowers to take on an azure hue

The big tree being prepared for its move in Boise, Idaho.

Watch a 100-foot-tall Giant Sequoia Get Transplanted in Boise

A gift from John Muir, the beloved tree was transferred to a local park by St. Luke's Medical Center so the facility can expand

257-Year-Old Coloring Book Rediscovered in St. Louis

The Florist contains 60 drawings, and recommends watercolor pigments like “gall-stone brown”

This 115-Million-Year-Old Mushroom Is the Oldest Fossilized Fungus

Preserved against all odds, the tiny mushroom sprung up when dinosaurs still ruled the lands

Early shoots of thale cress sprout in their case of transparent gel on the space station. This is the same type of plant examined in this latest study for its "brain."

Seeds May Use Tiny "Brains" to Decide When to Germinate

Two clumps of cells send hormone signals to each other to help determine when the time has come to sprout

A cyanotype photogram from "Photographs of British Algae."

How the First Female Photographer Changed the Way the World Sees Algae

The groundbreaking photo book by Anna Atkins, a 19th-century British botanist, is going on display in the Netherlands

Tea leaves

Researchers Read the Genome in the Tea Leaves

It's massive—four times that of coffee

Unlikely savior: The remarkable properties of spaghnum moss help preserve long-dead bodies, sequester carbon and even heal wounds.

How Humble Moss Healed the Wounds of Thousands in World War I

The same extraordinary properties that make this plant an “ecosystem engineer” also helped save human lives

New Survey Estimates Earth Has 60,065 Tree Species

Researchers from Botanic Gardens Conservation International compiled the list, finding that at least 10,000 tree species are at risk of extinction

David Fairchild in 1940, tasting the fruit of an antidesma tree in Indonesia.

This Swashbuckling Botanist Changed America’s Landscapes

Not always for the better

Among all those poppies is something less beautiful—noxious, invasive weeds.

After Intense Downpour, Superblooming California Has a Problem

In a word: weeds

This image, taken from space last summer, shows a long swath of dead mangroves on Australia's northern coast.

What Killed Northern Australia’s Mangroves?

Last year’s massive die-off was the largest ever observed

National Archives of Korea's Busan Repository

Why South Korea’s National Archive Uprooted 12 Japanese Trees

The kaizuka trees represent a long and complicated history with the country's former colonial occupier

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault keeps backups of the world's seeds safe in case of catastrophe.

Syria Just Made a Major Seed Bank Deposit

Seeds from 49,000 types of crops will be backed up in Svalbard once more

Flowering quinoa

Genome Mapping Could Lead to Cheaper and More Abundant Quinoa

New data on the "superfood" could help breed varieties that require less processing and can thrive in poor soil conditions

This is wheat. And if Salish Blue has anything to do with it, it may one day become obsolete.

New Self-Sustaining “Wheat” Could Change the Farming Industry

It’s called Salish Blue, and it’s more than a science experiment

One of the rarest orchids east of the Mississippi, the small-whorled pogonia, emerges from a long dormancy when there is an abundance of specific fungi in the soil.

A Mystery of Hiding Orchids, Solved

Smithsonian scientists have discovered what triggers the rare small-whorled pogonia to awaken from dormancy

House and Cedar-Lined Walk in Mist, October 2003

Get Lost in the Landscape that Inspired William Faulkner’s Greatest Novels

A new book of photography brings the late author's Mississippi homestead to life

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