MIT researchers have overcome a major barrier to large-scale solar power: storing energy for later use.
posted on Aug 1, 2008 - View this thread

They are members of the olive family, among the earliest flowering plants imported to the United States. Planted near the front doors of flat, bare early Colonial house facades, they helped to create "dooryard gardens," which softened and brought beauty to a rough-hewn early America. Jefferson planted them; at Monticello, some of those bushes still bloom.. They gave Pan his pipes. They are employed as evocative symbols in American literature, song, and poetry, where they symbolize the sensuousness of love in its earliest stages. Festivals celebrate their blooming, and NOAA tracks the earliest leaves and flowers for evidence of climate change. The inability to smell it may be an early indication of Alzheimer's disease. No wonder people like to steal them.
posted on May 23, 2008 - View this thread

"King Cotton" created a huge demand for land and (slave) labor that changed early America's borders, population, and economics. But just as cotton affected history, history affected cotton: the story of naturally colored cottons -- brown, green, yellow, mauve, and reddish cottons -- has almost been lost.
posted on May 9, 2008 - View this thread

Blooming is booming. Whether you prefer DIY or professionals, knowing what to plant and when can be daunting...unless you've got some really excellent websites on your side. And you do! Plantwire will help you find plants through conventional search, tags, or even by colour. Fine Gardening Magazine's site has much to offer: how-to section with videos, design ideas, and a fabulous plant guide. Garden Simply can help you achieve sustainable, organic gardening. Garden and Flower has several convenient guides on how to achieve gardening nirvana - including butterfly garden essentials!
posted on Mar 28, 2008 - View this thread

Thoreau was into it. Scientists are using it to understand climate change. When Project Budburst starts again on Febraury 15th, you can participate, too.
posted on Jan 27, 2008 - View this thread

Don Berto’s Garden. "The plants of the ancient Maya whisper their secrets to those who speak a shared language."
posted on Oct 28, 2007 - View this thread

One whose "putrid-smelling blossom attracts herds of carrion beetles" and seven more similar charmers. Some fearsome vegetables. A very lovely "previously." (From Taz, circa 2003.) Some plants that've been given new, animated features and a soundtrack. And finally, this: it has to be the most annoying website in history, but it presents some very nifty ideas for vegetable-based costuming you might be able to use for Halloween, plus Richard Simmons is featured. Click on "fashion" for the lettuce gowns, tomato hats and just all kinda fabulous Carmen Mirandesque madness.
posted on Oct 26, 2007 - View this thread

MAKING HAPPY/one human life is a photoblog by Gayla Trail.
posted on Aug 16, 2007 - View this thread

According to a new study in Biology Letters (Royal Society journal), plants respond competitively when forced to share their pot with strangers of the same species, but when placed in a pot with their siblings are more accomodating. PDF, HTML.
posted on Jun 17, 2007 - View this thread

The Encyclopedia of Life project will create a compendium of every aspect of the biosphere. It aims to compile data on all of Earth's 1.8 million known species on one Web site, and will include species descriptions, pictures, maps, videos, sound, sightings by amateurs, and links to entire genomes and scientific journal papers. E. O. Wilson is getting his wish. [Via BB.]
posted on May 9, 2007 - View this thread

The Mathematical Lives of Plants "Scientists have puzzled over this pattern of plant growth for hundreds of years. Why would plants prefer the golden angle to any other? And how can plants possibly "know" anything about Fibonacci numbers?"
posted on May 7, 2007 - View this thread

When you consume coconut meat, coconut milk or popcorn you are eating endosperm. The dark, unsettling world of plant sexuality.
posted on Apr 8, 2007 - View this thread

A very brief history of conservatories, and another. And little more on orangeries.
More than just a place to keep plants warm, conservatories peaked in popularity (and size) in the second half of the 19th century. They popped up all over Europe, wherever elites wanted to show off their 'exotic' plunders. Made from more than a million feet of glass, the Crystal Palace may have been the awesomest of them all: it was initially built to showcase the wonders of Victorian England, and its exhibits included the latest technological innovations, the largest organ in the world, a circus, objects from Australia, India, and other colonial lands, along with the many tropical plant species we usually associate with big glass buildings. The whole thing was later moved to South London and eventually housed a television station and became associated with a well-known football club. Finally, it burned to the ground in 1936. Coincidentally, Munich's copycat, the Glaspalast was destroyed by arson as well. (But each year's catalog of exhibits has been digitized!) Conservatories flourish in North America as well. San Francisco's Conservatory of Flowers was assembled from a kit, survived the '06 earthquake, but had to be rebuilt after successive explosions, fires, rotten wood, and a massive wind-storm. (Don't miss their cooking tips, but watch out – their site may be NSFW.) And although they certainly aren't as popular as they used to be, contemporary conservatories can be found. Before you leave the world of glass houses, take a quick look at some photos of Detroit's hidden treasure.
posted on Mar 12, 2007 - View this thread

"The USDA PLANTS database provides standardized information about the vascular plants, mosses, liverworts, hornworts, and lichens of the U.S. and its territories." Among the highlights are a list of culturally significant plants and a searchable image gallery you can submit photos to. Forestry Images is a similar USDA-supported site dedicated to silviculture.

If that isn't enough for you, click on over to the Germplasm Resources Information Network. There, you'll find a smorgasbord of information on virtually all the food varieties commercially raised in the US: where the germplasm is held, lists of species at each site, detailed descriptions of individual accessions (e.g., cultivars), even who owns the Red Silk Radish. If it grows and you can eat, drink, smoke or inject it, the USDA probably has it cataloged. And if they don't, search one of these.
posted on Dec 6, 2006 - View this thread

The Urban Pantheist is the livejournal of Jef Taylor, where he works out articles for his two zines: The Urban Pantheist: Loving Nature while Living in the City and Urban Nature Walk. The LJ became a bit more as he embarked on a project called 365 Urban Species, where he'll post a current photo and short article about a different living thing found in the city each day.
posted on Jul 16, 2006 - View this thread

The architecture of plant tissue. Very cool stained slides of various plant cells. [via Pruned]
posted on Apr 14, 2006 - View this thread

Nature's Control: Hired Thugs Bugs to police your garden. "If desired, you can keep ladybug adults from flying by "gluing" their wings shut, temporarily, with a sugar-water solution. Half water and half sugared pop (Coke, Pepsi, etc.), in a spray bottle, works fine."
posted on Feb 21, 2006 - View this thread

Beware, O unsuspecting traveler; for the path you take shall surely lead to your doom. The Galleria Carnivora: A celebration of plants that kill. Also, learn how to cultivate your own Audreys with the help of the International Carnivorous Plant Society (and check out their Members Gallery as well).
posted on Feb 9, 2006 - View this thread

"Lost World" found in Indonesian Papua (with audio)
posted on Feb 7, 2006 - View this thread

Huge "Do it with friends" Greenhouse, Medium DIY PVC Greenhouse[pdf], Small DIY PVC Greenhouse. Now make some money with that greenhouse.
posted on Nov 22, 2005 - View this thread

Plant Cultures - central aim ... is to convey the richness and complexity of links between Britain and South Asia, through the story of plants and people
posted on Nov 12, 2005 - View this thread

A xylothek is literally a library of wood, a collection of book-like boxes made from trees--the wood and bark with the seeds, leaves, flowers, fruit--or illustrations of the soft parts (site in German), inside.
posted on Nov 9, 2005 - View this thread

Wayne's World (an unfortunate name for a great website) is "An On-line Textbook of Natural History." I went looking for information on Vanilla, which I knew is the only commercial food product of an orchid, but which I didn't know is hand-pollinated, and found information on so much more. There are several extensive courses available on basic biology and botany, a huge section on chemicals in plants and animals, and tons of fun stuff like "The Truth about Cauliflory" and "Bat-Pollinated Flowers Of The Calabash & Sausage Tree." The index is extensive and covers everything from "Absinthe: An Herb That May Have Poisoned Vincent van Gogh" to "Ziricote: Beautiful Caribbean Hardwood In The Borage Family."
posted on Aug 4, 2005 - View this thread

Useful Reference for the Gardener or those who just want to learn more about the plants around them: for example, calendula, which yellow flower is seeding all over my yard. Once you've learned how to grow it, you can visit Mrs. Grieve's Modern Herbal, which will tell you what to do with your harvest. Don't forget to check the handy Index of Poisons before you move on to the recipes.
posted on Aug 1, 2005 - View this thread

News from the world of plants by way of the University of British Columbia Botanical Garden weblog. Beauty in science by way of the photo of the day.
posted on Jun 2, 2005 - View this thread

Plants in motion Time-lapse movies of plants doing plant-like things, such as growing, nutating, opening up, and being smelly. [requires quicktime]
posted on Feb 22, 2005 - View this thread

The many seasons of kudzu. In Georgia, the legend says that you must close your windows at night to keep it out of the house. Love it or run.
posted on Dec 19, 2004 - View this thread

The Alien Plant.
In Georgia, the legend says
That you must close your windows
At night to keep it out of the house.
posted on Nov 11, 2004 - View this thread

Bonsai: Worlds Within Worlds is a pretty impressive bonsai gallery site. An earlier "issue" is here.
posted on Oct 17, 2004 - View this thread

Monsanto Wins Fight to Control Plant The Canadian Supreme court sets international precedent by ruling that since Monsanto holds a patent on a gene, it can control the use of the plant. So does this mean that in the future that an engineered human gene could be patented, and therefore if you receive this gene you will have to make royalty payments? And if you renege on paying can they repo the gene?
posted on May 21, 2004 - View this thread

The orchid, I think is the most beautiful variety of flower. If not for my black thumb I'd gladly devote some time to growing this gorgeous flowers. The main link is to the Internet Orchid Photo Encyclopedia. There's apparently a cultural phenomena involving orchids that even includes tails of theft. A case of Nicaraguan theft has even been likened to rape. NOVA has done an episode on it, which sadly I haven't seen. They're an amazingly diverse species.
posted on May 15, 2004 - View this thread

Duchess's poison dell will lure visitors Provided that a duchess can see eye-to-eye with the Home Office on growing cannabis, strychnine and cocaine, Britain is about to get the most venomous and hallucinogenic garden it has ever seen. via neil gaiman's journal
posted on Apr 27, 2004 - View this thread

The Missouri Botanical Garden Library has scanned and posted 46 volumes of its rare book collection. 16,133 pages and 2,050 beautiful illustrations are currently available.
As an example, see this engraving of a foxglove by Pierre Vallet from 1608.
posted on Dec 22, 2003 - View this thread

Animal, Vegetable, Video — vibrant vids of vitality.
posted on Dec 3, 2003 - View this thread

Many common food plants contain noxious and toxic antinutrients designed to ward off predators, including humans. Tomatoes and Potatoes for example contain Glycoalkaloids which cause a Depressed central nervous system; kidney inflammation; carcinogenic; birth defects; reduced iron uptake. Can Genetically Engineered strains increase these naturally occuring antinutrients and toxins? (more inside)
posted on Nov 8, 2003 - View this thread

Plants in motion is a comprehensive archive of time-lapse movies (Quicktime format) of plants germinating and growing, flowers opening, tropic responses and circadian movements. Some of the video is quite eerie. The plants really seem...erm...alive... The site also has a guide to making your own time-lapse film.
posted on Oct 19, 2003 - View this thread

Botanical Record-Breakers - learn about the world's most poisonous plants, the fastest growing, the most painful, the oldest, the ongoing debate about the largest, and much more. Also discussed is the rare coconut pearl - botanical jewel, or hoax?
posted on Oct 2, 2003 - View this thread

Katinka Matson's scanned flower art : technology lets the flowers speak. "...imagine a painter who could, like Vermeer, capture the quality of light that a camera can, but with the color of paints. That is what a scanner gives you.... In her flowers one can see every microscopic dew drop, leaf vein, and particle of pollen—in satisfying rich pigmented color....." (scroll down for images)
posted on Jun 24, 2003 - View this thread

The delicate art of topiary, or "cutting trees into weird shapes". The people. The history. The outstanding. The bizarre, and the phallic (completely SFW). I grew up with a similar tree to the last one on my street, although ours had...uhugm... a knob on top; I believe the gardener responsible was too short to trim above a certain level...
posted on Jun 5, 2003 - View this thread

The SalmoFan: So long, and thanks for all the fish and animals, and plants... Amidst the catastrophic decline of large ocean fish, Salmon farmers can choose the hue of their "farmed" Salmon with the SalmoFan. [Meanwhile, these same salmon are fed on a factory fishing catch process which effectively strips most large life forms from the ocean.] With 1/4 of all mammmals and 1/2 of all plant species facing extinction, Is the planet truly at a crossroads? Are we losing the extinction battle? .."Overfishing is a global problem. People are taking marine life faster than it can reproduce. The world's catch peaked at 86 million tons in 1989, up fourfold in 50 years.....But many governments, including the United States, Mexico, the European Union, Japan and China, kept on pouring subsidies into commercial fishing fleets to keep them afloat...The Gulf of California in Mexico is not dead, but it is exhausted from overfishing, which has caused every important species of fish there to decline....Crucial fisheries have collapsed worldwide."

Contrast that with This: "[once upon a time there were] cod shoals "so thick by the shore that we hardly have been able to row a boat through them." There were six- and seven-foot-long codfish weighing as much as 200 pounds. There were great banks of oysters as large as shoes. At low tide, children were sent to the shore to collect 10-, 15-, even 20-pound lobsters with hand rakes for use as bait or pig feed. Eight- to 12-foot sturgeon choked New England rivers, and salmon packed streams from the Hudson River to Hudson's Bay. Herring, squid and capelin (a small open-water fish seven inches long) spawning runs were so gigantic they astonished observers for more than four centuries"
posted on May 27, 2003 - View this thread

Antique Botanical Prints from Panteek, and many more.
posted on May 23, 2003 - View this thread

The Dancing Plant -- Darwin was obsessed by it, although even he never trained his weedy Asian shrub to twitch its leaves to the sound of music. But in a small town in northern Thailand ... [Some people may experience a time-delay ad]
posted on Mar 12, 2003 - View this thread

"Feeeeed Me!" Although the physical reality of this "museum" seems a bit sketchy, you simply have to love lush color photos of carniverous plants. I mean c'mon! Audrey II would be proud.
posted on Mar 4, 2002 - View this thread

Food For Thought? A beautifully-done site that's both a catalogue and compendium of information on plants with legendary powers. (Mandrake root, anyone?) But is this kind of ethnobotany a useful discipline? Should we be cultivating exotic species just for their trippiness?
posted on Sep 29, 2001 - View this thread

NASA to send glow-in-the-dark plants to Mars. While they wait and search for native life form, NASA, in conjunction with Ferl Lab of University of Florida, is sending GM plants that would report back via their glow into the Red Planet. The good doctor has sent his babies into the heavens before.
posted on May 7, 2001 - View this thread

The stilt palm. Easter lilies. Pilobolus. Plants that move, and the people who study them.
posted on Jan 17, 2001 - View this thread

Giant, rare, and slow bloomer Amorphophallus titanum or the Penis Plant is now blooming in the Netherlands. Charming photo of a grining woman reaching for the tip.
posted on Aug 7, 2000 - View this thread