42 Items Tagged

Botany

Tokyo Metropolitan Medicinal Botanical Garden

Home to a garden of poisonous plants and the only legal cannabis and opium farms in Tokyo.

Can the famous greenhouse get greener?

botanical gardens

Kew Gardens Is Undergoing a Big, Steamy Change

Fitted PJs, new glasses, and a good drilling will keep this Victorian icon hot.

Daniel Shailer February 20, 2024

Geraldine Watson Rare Native Plant Preserve

This magical oasis in East Texas is one of the most biodiverse acres in the country.

Though the original arrowroot is native to the tropical Americas, these were cultivated in India.

The Confusing Truth About Arrowroot

What's in a name?

Andrew Coletti January 22, 2024

Orto Botanico di Roma

An oasis of beauty, tranquility and botanical research in the middle of Rome.

Ginger, cinnamon, and nutmeg are so-called warm spices and the quintessential flavors of winter holidays.

How Ginger, Cinnamon, and Nutmeg Became Winter Spices

These tropical "warm spices," which flavor many Christmas cookies and other holiday favorites, are mainstays of traditional medicine.

Serina DeSalvio December 18, 2023

Herds of glacier mice, which are actually moss balls, move in concert across the ice.

Herds of Mysterious ‘Glacier Mice’ Baffle Scientists

These moss balls move in unison, and researchers are okay with not knowing why.

Roxanne Hoorn December 7, 2023

The bright colors of a monarch butterfly (<em>Danaus plexippus</em>), just like the boldly striped caterpillars of the species, warn predators to stay away.

The Monarch Butterfly Steals From Poisonous Plants to Survive

The butterfly defends itself using milkweed, just one of several plants packed with heart-stopping toxins that may also be in your medicine cabinet.

Noah Whiteman October 25, 2023

Detail of a plate illustration of medicinal plants published in the 1930s in a botanical reference book by Éditions Larousse.

botanical gardens

Addressing the Colonial Legacy of the World's Scientific Botanical Collections

Some 70 percent of specimens are located in developed countries with colonial histories. A new project seeks to make them more accessible.

Daniel Park August 14, 2023

Sweden's Oldest Olive Tree

A centuries-old olive tree thrives in a small botanical garden.

In 1938, Elzada Clover (first row, second from left) and Lois Jotter (first row, second from right) were the first non-Indigenous women to raft the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon.

The Historic Grand Canyon Adventure Two Women Had For Science

Botanists Elzada Clover and Lois Jotter braved rapids and steep cliffs to catalog numerous plant species.

Sarah Durn May 29, 2023

The last wild Round Island hurricane palm stands nearly 30 feet tall, towering above other palms.

This Mauritius Palm Is the Last of Its Kind in the Wild

Dedicated scientists are going to extremes to save this rare plant from extinction.

Ryan Truscott May 10, 2023

One of the earliest works of botanical horror, written by H.G. Wells in 1894, featured a fictional orchid with a taste for human blood.

What Stories of Scary Plants and Other Botanical Horrors Say About Us

From bloodthirsty orchids to body-snatching pods, fictional flora are often symbols of societal fears.

Kate Golembiewski May 4, 2023

The carnivorous plant <em>Nepenthes lowii</em>, found only in Borneo, is able to thrive in a harsh, high-elevation ecosystem because it has adapted to eat animal droppings.

carnivorous plants

These Toilet-Shaped Carnivorous Plants Thrive By Eating Poop

Some of Borneo's pitcher plants took insects off the menu in favor of mammal droppings. It's an evolutionary triumph.

Gemma Tarlach January 20, 2023

A farmer in Ethiopia cradles a handful of maslin, mixed grains including different varieties of wheat and barley that are grown together.

This Nearly Lost Ancient Grain Tradition Could Be the Future of Farming

A past global staple you've never heard of, maslins are poised for a comeback.

Gemma Tarlach October 13, 2022

Birch Alley

Uppsala, Sweden

Birch Alley

A collection of birches from across Sweden.

Rebolj, with some foraged finds. "Flowers will call me when they want to be picked," she says.

The Mountain Mixologist of the Slovenian Alps

Tanja Rebolj, or "the blonde witch," transforms foraged finds into healing botanical liquors.

Noah Charney September 16, 2022

International Water Lily Garden

San Angelo, Texas

International Water Lily Garden

An oasis of lilies cultivated by the "Indiana Jones of Water Lilies."