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It's not hard to see how the sapphire tower gets its name. Image Credit: HannaTor/Shutterstock.com Sometimes in nature, there are events that we have to wait for. Some, like the upcoming American cicadapocaplypse might not be so popular – whereas, across the pond in Birmingham, UK, botanists are thrilled to reveal the blooming of their sapphire tower. The sapphire tower plant (Puya alpestri) from the Chilean Andes can take up to 10 years to flower. The plant is a member of the bromeliad family, distantly related to the pineapple. Normally found at high elevations of up to 2,200 meters (7,218...

The ancient forest displayed traces of early plants, with some believed to have existed during the time of dinosaurs. The region's cartography commenced half a decade ago, dating back to 2019. Researchers have discovered the planet's most ancient forest within a deserted quarry near Cairo, New York. Embedded in rocks dating back 385 million years, these fossils preserve the petrified roots of numerous ancient trees. This discovery signifies a pivotal moment in Earth's timeline. As trees developed these roots, they played a crucial role in extracting carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere, sequestering it and triggering a significant transformation in...

The "miracle" plant Silphium consumed by Ancient Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians, which was thought to have become extinct two thousand years ago, has recently been rediscovered in Turkey by a professor, who thinks he's found a botanical survivor.The plant, which the Ancient Greeks called silphion (silphium), was a golden-flowered plant. It was once the most sought-after product in the Mediterranean even before the rise of Athens and the Roman Empire.It is believed that the plant with yellow flowers attached to a thick stalk was crushed, roasted, sauteed, and boiled for medicinal purposes, food, and even contraception. During the reign of...

Locally sourced grapes and imported tar pitches may have been the norms for winemakers along the coast of Italy during the Roman period, according to jars recovered from the ocean near the harbor of San Felice Circeo. Three different wine jars, or amphorae, were recovered and analyzed, giving researchers a useful insight into the practices for producing wine in this particular region in 1–2 century BCE, part of the late Greco-Italic period. What makes the research particularly notable is that it combines some of the latest chemical analysis techniques with other approaches used in archaeobotany to discover more about these...

Packed to the rafters with carnivorous plants of all shapes and sizes, one greenhouse local to Colorado Springs stands as a testament to both a passion gone wild as well as a concerted effort to preserve rare plants for the future. For Jeremiah Harris, a Colorado Springs local, the journey to collect, preserve, and propagate as many carnivorous plants as humanly possible started way back when he was a kid. "When I was like four or five years old," commented Jeremiah, "I was fascinated with reptiles, insects, and carnivorous plants." Following one truly exceptional day in his early years, Jeremiah's...

Seeds from the morning glory (Convolvulaceae) family of plants contain LSD-like chemicals, which have the potential for treating everything from depression to Parkinson's disease, at least if studies are allowed. Morning glories are tropical vines with flowers that only open in the morning. They thrive in disturbed forests and at river edges. More importantly, they form symbiotic relationships with highly specialized fungi of the Periglandula genus, and mother plants pass their fungus on through the seeds. The fungi in question are known to sometimes produce ergot alkaloids, a family of molecules that produce psychedelic effects in humans. Indigenous Mexicans have...

Scientists originally discovered hyperaccumulators in the 1970s, and so far over 65 such plants have been identified in New Caledonia, 59 in Turkey, and a few others in countries like Brazil, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines. However, scientists are convinced that many more remain to be discovered. This capacity to store large quantities of heavy metals has been studied by various biological sciences, from molecular biology to physiology and biochemistry, and while much has been learnt about the hyperaccumulation and hypertolerance of zinc and cadmium by some plants, nickel hyperaccumulation mechanisms remain a mystery.The evolution of hyperaccumulators like Pycnandra acuminata is believed to...

Some plants emit a high frequency distress sound when they are placed under environmental stress, a team of researchers at Tel Aviv University in Israel has found. The team, led by Itzhak Khait, examined the sounds emitted by tomato and tobacco plants when stressed by insufficient water or when their stems are cut. Microphones recorded ultrasonic sounds between 20 and 100 kilohertz emitted by the plants in both cases, the study found. The sounds emitted by the stressed plants are at frequencies unable to be heard by humans, however the team of scientists believes “some organisms” can hear the sounds...

New fossil finds from China push back the origins of deep soils by 20 million years, new research has uncovered. This is a key part of the stepwise conquest of the land and transformation of the continents, researchers from the universities of Peking and Bristol have discovered. One of the greatest transitions in Earth history was the greening of the land. Up to 450 million years ago, there was no life outside water, and the land surface was a rocky landscape. Without plants there were no soils, and the rocky landscape eroded fast. Then the first tiny plants crept out...

The corpse flower (Amorphophallus titanum), also known as the stinky plant, is blooming at the U.S. Botanic Garden Conservatory. It is the first bloom of this particular plant, which is six years old. It takes quite a while to create enough energy for a bloom as spectacular as this one! The plant went on view to the public Friday, July 22, and peak bloom is currently estimated for July 30-Aug 2. The magic of the titan arum comes from its great size - it is largest unbranched inflorescence in the plant kingdom. When it went on display, the plant...

Dr. Patrick Moore sent me this last week, and after reading it, I agree with him in his initial note to me that This is probably the most important paper I will ever write. Moore looks at the historical record of CO2 in our atmosphere and concludes that we came dangerously close to losing plant life on Earth about 18,000 years ago, when CO2 levels approached 150 ppm, below which plant life can’t sustain photosynthesis. He notes: A 140 million year decline in CO2 to levels that came close to threatening the survival of life on Earth can hardly be...

Paintings can be a window to more than the outmoded dress and strange customs of the past — sometimes, they have modern-day science lessons to impart, too. That's the case with Giovanni Stanchi’s 17th century still life of fruit, as Phil Edwards points out for Vox — just look for the watermelons. Stanchi’s work, painted between 1645 and 1672 (and now up for auction at Christie’s), includes strange watermelons that look so foreign they could be from outer space in the bottom right corner. If watermelons looked like that in the Renaissance, then why do they look so different today?...

The teeming plant world could become a virtual mystery in the coming decades as college students increasingly shy away from studying botany and universities across the U.S. shutter their long-standing herbaria. Since 1988, the number of research universities offering botany degrees has dropped by half, according to National Science Foundation research funding statistics. And the National Center for Education Statistics reports that fewer than 400 undergraduate, graduate and doctoral botany degrees were awarded in 2012. Educators say that’s because students are being pushed into more modern, technology-related majors. Current botanists fear that will lead to a dearth of people able...

The oldest evidence of sexual reproduction in a flowering plant - dating back 100 million years - has been found in Burma. The team discovered a cluster of 18 tiny flowers in a piece of amber; one of them was in the process of making new seeds for the next generation. Flowering plants caused an enormous change in biodiversity on Earth.

The forest really does hum with life. Though often too low or too high for human ears to detect, insects and animals signal each other with vibrations. Even trees and plants fizz with the sound of tiny air bubbles bursting in their plumbing. And there is evidence that insects and plants "hear" each other's sounds. Bees buzz at just the right frequency to release pollen from tomatoes and other flowering plants. And bark beetles may pick up the air bubble pops inside a plant, a hint that trees are experiencing drought stress. Sound is so fundamental to life that some...

Oct 30, 2009 — “Plant fossils give first real picture of earliest Neotropical rainforests,” announced a press release from University of Florida.  The fossils from Colombia show that “many of the dominant plant families existing in today’s Neotropical rainforests – including legumes, palms, avocado and banana – have maintained their ecological dominance despite major changes in South America’s climate and geological structure.” The team found 2,000 megafossil specimens from the Paleocene, said to be 58 million years old.  This is only 5 to 8 million years after the extinction of the dinosaurs according to conventional dating.  “The new study provides...

Researchers are recovering beautiful fossils from the Cerrejón Formation of Colombia. One was a giant snake, called the “Titanoboa.” Most recently, a study examined the formation’s fossilized flora, which looked the same as modern plants, and the rainforest environment in which they lived.[1] This research dovetails nicely with other studies on ancient earth’s turbulent climate. There is evidence of dramatic...

Weekend Roundup --snip-- Picture Highlight: the new Herschel Space Telescope, is seeing first light and creating dramatic images of gas clouds in the Milky Way...

Plant Evolution: Where’s the Root? April 16, 2009 — To Darwin, the origin of flowering plants was an “abominable mystery.” Recently, some entries on Science magazine’s blog Origins have claimed the mystery has been solved, at least partially, and a full solution is near at hand. Here is a great test case for evolution. Angiosperms comprise a huge, diverse population of organisms. There should be an ample fossil record, and many genes to decipher. Let’s see if the optimistic claims are rooted in evidence...