MetaFilter posts tagged with plants

Plant Sex.

eleyna — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 07:41:28 -0800

Pollen, pollen everywhere. The article isn't bad, but it's the photo gallery that is truly fascinating.

Giant 'meat-eating' plant produces traps big enough to catch rodents

Lush — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 03:06:33 -0800

A giant carnivorous plant found only in Mount Victoria, Palawan in the Philippines, has been named Nepenthes attenboroughii, after renowned British naturalist and broadcaster Sir David Attenborough.

Casual? tower defense

juv3nal — Fri, 08 May 2009 11:21:18 -0800

Plants vs. Zombies is out. (Mac also). Demo available. $10 on Steam. Adorable promo music video. It has more minigames than you can shake a stick at including a reskinned bejewelled twist & insaniquarium. (in fact it is by the same designer behind insaniquarium). Unfortunately in-game music is not as cool as the promo video, but still a darned addictive game overall.

Self-Irrigating Planter Resources

aniola — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 08:55:36 -0800

Summer's coming! The tried-and-true food growing tool of the aspiring urban agriculturalist: self-irrigating planters. Make or buy one of these things and vegetable container gardening is a breeze. Their blog has a lot of other cool resources, too.

Time-lapse plants

mudpuppie — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 11:40:37 -0800

So bored you could watch plants grow? Okay, start with Corn [0:35] and Radishes [0:46]. Round it out with: Beans [0:59] Bittercress [0:50] Burr oak [0:59] Cress [1:40] Fast plant [1:38] Fungi (footage from the National Archives) [4:22] Mushrooms (the magic kind) [0:43] Mushrooms (the oyster kind) [1:03] Peas [1:17] Peppers [1:29] Pitcher plant [2:30] Potatoes [1:40] Giant pumpkin (with dynamite!) [1:28] Stone pine [0:37] Sunflowers (warning, unhappy ending) [3:51] Toadstool [1:01] Watercress [0:45] Wheatgrass [1:15] And a bonus for people of a certain age: Sesame Street explains how plants grow [0:29]. Previously.

Expand Your Plant Knowledge

netbros — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 15:38:09 -0800

Whether you're a casual cultivator or gardening guru, PlantCare.com has a wealth of information about the care and feeding of indoor and outdoor plants. You can search the extensive plant database to find information on thousands of house plants, participate in and discuss your favorite gardening topics in the plant forum, and expand your plant knowledge with hundreds of gardening tips and guides.

Nicotiana alata, up close and personal

Brandon Blatcher — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 07:47:34 -0800

Three scanning electron microscope images of the plant Nicotiana alata.

Brown thumb no more!

miss lynnster — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 19:45:29 -0800

Now even your plants can twitter you. Awesome!

I know you're waiting for the rain to come by -- Plant Information Online

cog_nate — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 08:32:27 -0800

Planning next spring's garden? Just curious about plants? Then check out Plant Information Online, which "provides access to: Current Plant and Seed Sources for 107,631 plants... from 1,054 North American firms that will ship plants; Contact information and links... for 2,448 North American retail and wholesale seed and nursery firms; Bibliographic details for 377,083 images of 140,104 wild and cultivated plants from around the world in botanical and horticultural books and magazines from 1982 to the present; and links to expert-selected sites on growing plants in your region of Canada or the US." (Description from website.)

All Night Long

chuckdarwin — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 04:51:13 -0800

MIT researchers have overcome a major barrier to large-scale solar power: storing energy for later use. "If you can only have energy when the sun is shining, you're in deep trouble. And that's why, in my opinion, photovoltaics haven't penetrated the market," Daniel Nocera, an MIT professor of energy, said in an interview at his Cambridge, Massachusetts, office. "If I could provide a storage mechanism, then I make energy 24/7 and then we can start talking about solar." Solar has been growing as a power source in the United States -- last year the nation's solar capacity rose 45 percent to 750 megawatts. But it is still a tiny power source, producing enough energy to meet the needs of about 600,000 typical homes, and only while the sun is shining, according to data from the Solar Energy Industries Association. Most U.S. homes with solar panels feed electricity into the power grid during the day, but have to draw back from the grid at night. Nocera said his development would allow homeowners to bank solar energy as hydrogen and oxygen, which a fuel cell could use to produce electricity when the sun was not shining. "I can turn sunlight into a chemical fuel, now I can use photovoltaics at night," said Nocera, who explained the discovery in a paper written with Matthew Kanan published on Thursday in the journal Science.

Lilacs

Miko — Fri, 23 May 2008 12:46:59 -0800

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.

Now wait just a cotton-pickin' minute

Asparagirl — Fri, 09 May 2008 14:20:09 -0800

"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. Slaves in the American South, forbidden from planting white cotton lest they sell it for profit, grew this colored cotton in their gardens to spin their own clothes. These heirloom varieties, and colored cottons being grown in the former Soviet Union, were considered too difficult to spin commercially, and were almost lost until an untrained textiles enthusiast named Sally Fox single-handedly pioneered the revival of some of these cotton colors. Her cotton plants are grown organically (amazing for cotton, the most pesticide-dependent crop in the world!), drought tolerant, and their fibers require no toxic bleaching or highly carcinogenic dyes. Undyed colored cotton, raised organically in Peru by artisans through a collective called Pakucho, is also sold online here (Knitter's Review likes it a lot). And on a fun note, companies like Levi Strauss & Co. have now come full circle -- the original Levi's jeans were made in both the traditional indigo-dyed white cotton and in natural brown cotton, the latter of which fell out of favor. Now Levi's makes jeans out of Sally Fox's cotton.

You can bury a lot of troubles digging in the dirt.

batmonkey — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 07:32:53 -0800

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! Plantwire is in beta and looking for input; plant pics are Creative Commons licensed from Flickr. The Fine Gardening Plant Guide is siftable by 12 categories which support multi-option selection - e.g., you can list all plants for Zone 8 then narrow down by drought-tolerant annuals and grasses, if you like.

I soon found myself observing when plants first blossomed and leafed

Tehanu — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 10:17:18 -0800

Thoreau was into it. Scientists are using it to understand climate change. When Project Budburst starts again on Febraury 15th, you can participate, too. Maps of 2007 data from the National Phenology Network: first leaf date and first bloom date. Phenology projects in various parts of the world.

Language, biodiversity, and a story of salvation

homunculus — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 11:52:24 -0800

Don Berto’s Garden. "The plants of the ancient Maya whisper their secrets to those who speak a shared language."

Yet more pics of plants.

Don Pepino — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 11:25:51 -0800

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.

Looking North

JohnR — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 03:33:51 -0800

MAKING HAPPY/one human life is a photoblog by Gayla Trail.

Plants can recognize siblings

christopherious — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 14:53:14 -0800

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.

Encyclopedia of Life

homunculus — Wed, 09 May 2007 22:15:24 -0800

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.]

plants and numbers

dhruva — Mon, 07 May 2007 21:03:25 -0800

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?"

Bless you, Georgia O'Keefe

Brandon Blatcher — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 09:35:47 -0800

When you consume coconut meat, coconut milk or popcorn you are eating endosperm. The dark, unsettling world of plant sexuality.

It's Still Rock and Roll to Me

serazin — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 00:08:00 -0800

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.

And yet, no tomacco.

cog_nate — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 20:08:43 -0800

"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.

Signs of life in the sidewalk cracks

FunkyHelix — Sun, 16 Jul 2006 18:25:30 -0800

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.

Check out these slides because they are pretty and neat

billysumday — Fri, 14 Apr 2006 10:38:16 -0800

The architecture of plant tissue. Very cool stained slides of various plant cells. [via Pruned]