Science Art: Plate XIV (Cosmarium species from Desmids of the United States….
Single-celled algae, magnified 500 times. They float in ponds and stream banks. I found them in the Biodiversity Heritage Library, in the Rev. Francis Wolle’s […]
botany
Science Art: Helicodiceros crinitus Schott by J. Strohmayer / Anstalt v. Reiffenstein & Rösch in Wein.
Click to embiggen An image of an arum, from the Biodiversity Heritage Library’s Aroideae, 1 album, consisting of plates from Heinrich Wilhelm Schott’s Aroideae. The […]
Genetically-altered houseplants clear indoor air.
Science Daily reveals an environmentally friendly GMO – a new variety of pothos ivy that University of Washington researchers designed to remove chloroform and benzene […]
SONG: Upside Down
SONG: “Upside Down” [Download] . ARTIST: grant. SOURCE: Nature, 12 June 2018, “Africa’s majestic baobab trees are mysteriously dying”, as used in the post “The […]
The baobabs are dying.
No, this isn’t a heart-wrenching sequel to The Little Prince. It’s a report in Nature on a baffling illness striking down some of Africa’s most […]
Science Art: Tab X from Ueber den Pollen by Carl Julius Fritzsche, 1837.
Where plants come from. (And hay fever.) These are as seen through a pretty powerful microscope – magnified 500 times – and drawn by a […]
Sigh. Maybe a sweet potato *doesn’t* mean that prehistoric Polynesians visited South America after all.
The Guardian has some sweet potato evolutionary research that unintentionally drives a wedge in the idea that the presence of the humble yam in both […]
Science Art: De XII Afbeelding (Banana) by Maria Sibylla Merian
Click to embiggen At the end of the 17th century, this was some weird and wild stuff – a fruit that in the Americas, they […]
Tomato plants can defend themselves – by turning caterpillars into cannibals.
Nature is decidedly unappetizing in its discussion of how vegetables turn attackers against each other: Integrative biologist John Orrock and his colleagues at the University […]
Very old oak; pretty young genes.
Nature examines a tree that was alive in the time of Napoleon, yet has DNA that’s remarkably free of the usual damage of aging: Each […]
Science Art: Medlar, Poppy Anenome, Pear by Hoefnagel and Bocskay, 1561-2.
Wildflower and fruit, from two 16th-century Europeans. More specifically: Medlar, Poppy Anenome, Pear ( 1561 – 1562 ). Watercolour, gold and silver paint, and ink […]
Science Art: Lychee, from Flora Sinensis, 1656.
This is Litchi chinensis, 荔枝, the lychee, sometimes called a “lychee nut” although it’s not nut-like at all. It’s more like a muscadine (tough skin, […]
Science Art: Picea excelsa, Walter Mueller, 1886.
Click to embiggen A spruce tree, for the second day of Christmas. From Dr. Prof. Thomé’s Flora von Deutschland, Oesterreich und der Schweiz, in Wort […]
Science Art: Nutmeg Tree, from 40 drawings of plants at Bencoolen, Sumatra, c.1824.
Click to embiggen Spice. In watercolor. It looks like it would smell delicious. From 40 Drawings of Plants at Bencoolen, Sumatra, a collection of natural […]
Coffee (and pepper) of the dinosaurs discovered.
Discovery News hypes the headline a little here (but forgivably) by declaring that a 45-million-year-old prehistoric coffee has been discovered preserved in amber: Named Strychnos […]