Science Art: Main floristic types from the Maastrichtian, F. Guillén, 2012.
This is a likeness of the southern bit of South America as it was near the end of the Cretaceous, right before the event that […]
botany
Plants have desires … and the agency to meet them. So are they smart?
NPR was one of several outlets covering the release of writer Zoë Schlanger’s new book The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence […]
Science Art: Punica Granatum, 1829
This tasty-looking fruit is from a medical text – Medical Botany: or, Illustrations and Descriptions of the Medicinal Plants of the London, Edinburgh, and Dublin […]
Science Art: A Fossil Flower (Cycadeoidea ingens), 1924.
This is a photograph of a model from the Field Museum of Natural History, representing a cycad flower reconstructed from a fossil. The fossil came […]
Science Art: Flower of Polygonum persicarium distorted by Utricle smut and following figures, by J.E. Sowerby, 1872.
This is a bunch of smut. Mostly, it’s smut in the genus Ustilago growing on plants in the same genus as knotweed and buckwheat. The […]
The largest plant in the world stretches over 180 km and is 4,500 years old. And fish like it.
The University of Western Australia has singled out a seagrass, Poseidonia australis, in the waters of Shark Bay, Western Australia, as the world’s largest plant: […]
Science Art: Bole cross section of common hazel (Corylus avellana), by Annika Karusion, 2011
This is a microscope’s view of a plant’s stem, uploaded to Wikimedia Commons as part of the Estonian Science Photo Competition of 2011, which I […]
Tomato plants have a kind of nervous system.
New Scientist reports on research at the Federal University of Pelotas in Brazil, where Gabriela Niemeyer Reissig and colleagues have found that tomatoes being eaten […]
Science Art: Cypress root system exposed 4 feet deep by wave action…, 1915.
Today, Folklore Twitter is celebrating #SwampSunday, so I thought I’d slip this stately scientific illustration into my queue. This is what’s going on underneath that […]
Science Art: Persea: Taft, by Royal Charles Steadman, 1914.
Click to embiggen It’s an avocado, an aguacate, also known as an alligator pear in English and a “lawyer pear” in Dutch. This is a […]
Science Art: Germinating squash seed, 1908
A new beginning, from Elements of Philippine Agriculture on archive.org (though I found it on Flickr Commons).
Science Art: Gradus Peas, Petoskey or Paul Rose Musk Melon, 1899
Click to embiggen From the D.M. Ferry & Co. Seed Annual, via the Biodiversity Heritage Library. Fresh vegetables, fresh muskmelon. Mmm. I do love a […]
Yes, indigenous South Americans were actively managing the forest.
Scientific American looks at old trees to determine how so-called hunter-gatherers were actually actively “farming” the Brazil nuts and cocoa trees they relied on for […]
Science Art: Plate 7: Sweetbread, Horn of Plenty, Puffball, Chanterelle, from Edible and Poisonous Mushrooms, 1894.
Click to embiggen vastly. Mushrooms you can trust. I think. From the Biodiversity Heritage Library’s Flickr collection “Edible and poisonous mushrooms: what to eat and […]
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 […]