Public asked to put away lawnmowers next month to deliver big gains for nature and the climate
A top 10 of the most common plants in British lawns has been revealed as conservationists urge gardeners to let their grass grow for the month of May.
Scientists at the charity Plantlife are asking the public to look out for wildflowers and other plants in their lawns as they put their lawnmowers away for a campaign labelled “No Mow May”.
Continue reading...Invasive species proliferating in Valais is encroaching on natural reserves and posing a biodiversity threat
The residents of the Swiss canton of Valais are used to seeing their mountainsides covered with snow in winter and edelweiss flowers in summer. But as global heating intensifies, they are increasingly finding an invasive species colonising the slopes: cacti.
Authorities say cactus species belonging to the genus Opuntia, or prickly pears, are proliferating in parts of Valais, encroaching on natural reserves and posing a biodiversity threat.
Continue reading...Scientists identify parts of ocean suitable for seaweed cultivation and suggest it could constitute 10% of human diet to reduce impact of agriculture
An area of ocean almost the size of Australia could support commercial seaweed farming around the world, providing food for humans, feed supplements for cattle, and alternative fuels, according to new research.
Seaweed farming is a nascent industry globally but the research says if it could grow to constitute 10% of human diets by 2050 it could reduce the amount of land needed for food by 110m hectares (272m acres) – an area twice the size of France.
Continue reading...Titan arum emits a foul smell to lure pollinators, but at the botanic gardens it attracts thousands of visitors to witness the rare flowering
A corpse flower, which emits a stench that can travel for kilometres to lure flesh flies, sweat bees and carrion beetles, has just bloomed in the Adelaide Botanic gardens.
It only blooms once every few years, and only for about 48 hours, to attract insects that have already wallowed in the pollen of another corpse flower.
Continue reading...October’s summery temperatures are ‘confusing’ plants and throwing off fragile ecosystems
Britain’s rare chalk grasslands and dormice are under threat from the mild weather this autumn, and some plants are “confused” and have flowered multiple times, experts have said.
This October, the UK has experienced temperatures more normal for spring or summer, with highs of 19.5C recorded this week, and more warm weather forecast for coming days.
Continue reading...Sale of peat-based compost for use on private gardens and allotments to be outlawed within 18 months
Sales of peat for use on private gardens and allotments will be banned in England from 2024, the government has announced.
Environmental campaigners have long called for stricter laws to restore peatlands.
Continue reading...Genetic testing has determined a single 4,500-year-old seagrass may have spread over 200 sq km of underwater seafloor – about 20,000 football fields
About 4,500 years ago, a single seed – spawned from two different seagrass species – found itself nestled in a favourable spot somewhere in what is now known as Shark Bay, just off Australia’s west coast.
Left to its own devices and relatively undisturbed by human hands, scientists have discovered that seed has grown to what is now believed to be the biggest plant anywhere on Earth, covering about 200 sq km (77 sq miles, or about 20,000 rugby fields, or just over three times the size of Manhattan island).
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Continue reading...Scientists believe site in Guangxi with trees up to 40 metres tall may contain undiscovered species
An ancient forest has been found at the bottom of a giant sinkhole in China, with trees up to 40 metres (130ft) tall.
Scientists believe it could contain undiscovered plant and animal species.
Continue reading...Gasteranthus extinctus had been presumed extinct after extensive deforestation
A South American wildflower long believed to be extinct has been rediscovered.
Gasteranthus extinctus was found by biologists in the foothills of the Andes mountains and in remnant patches of forest in the Centinela region of Ecuador, almost 40 years after its last sighting.
Continue reading...Chris Thorogood had to venture deep into the Luzon rainforest to set eyes on the extraordinary Rafflesia banaoana
It was after travelling 6,600 miles and battling through the tropical assault course of the Luzon rainforest that Chris Thorogood set his eyes upon the rare and extraordinary flower that ignited his childhood imagination 30 years ago.
Thorogood, 38, last month became the first westerner to see the Rafflesia banaoana – an otherworldly-looking red spotted species that spans half a metre across – in an experience that reduced him to tears.
Continue reading...Patrols suggested as residents say foragers collecting large bags of wild garlic are ruining annual supply
Usually in the springtime, Millham Lane in the Cornish town of Lostwithiel is flanked by thick, unbroken banks of strongly scented wild garlic.
But this year ugly gaps have appeared in the bright green swathe after they were stripped by foragers – apparently professionals – intent on sourcing a fresh, free ingredient for fashionable dishes such as wild garlic pesto.
Continue reading...Dairy alternative goes on sale at Waitrose this week, the latest offering in a booming alt-milk market worth £400m a year
First came soya, nut and then oat but the new challenger to the plant milk crown is the humble spud as potato milk arrives on UK supermarket shelves.
Described as “deliciously creamy” and capable of producing the “perfect foam” for a homemade latte or cappuccino, the Swedish potato milk brand Dug goes on sale in 220 Waitrose stores this week.
Continue reading...Hundreds of new species include pink voodoo lily and an ylang-ylang tree named after Leonardo DiCaprio
A ghost orchid that grows in complete darkness, an insect-trapping tobacco plant and an “exploding firework” flower are among the new species named by scientists in the last year. The species range from a voodoo lily from Cameroon to a rare tooth fungus unearthed near London, UK.
A new tree from the ylang-ylang family is the first to be named in 2022 and is being named after the actor and environmentalist Leonardo DiCaprio. He campaigned to revoke a logging concession which threatened the African tree, which features glossy yellow flowers on its trunk.
Continue reading...John Ystumllyn was abducted from west Africa in 1746 and taken to Gwynedd, north Wales
One of Britain’s first known black gardeners has been honoured with a rose named after him in celebration of his life.
John Ystumllyn, whose original name is unknown, was abducted as an eight-year-old boy in west Africa around 1746 and taken to Gwynedd, north Wales. There he became a servant in the household of the Wynn family of Ystumllyn, whose estate he was named after, and learned horticulture in the gardens.
Continue reading...From willow bark to mosquitoes, nature has been a source of vital medications for centuries. But species die-off caused by human activity is putting this at risk
What will biodiversity loss mean for drug discovery?
Traditionally used as a painkiller for headaches, snowdrops are now known to slow the onset of dementia. In the 1950s, a natural alkaloid called galantamine was extracted from the bulbs. Today, a synthesised version of this is used to treat Alzheimer’s disease and scientists are investigating further to see if snowdrops might also be effective in the treatment of HIV.
However, over-harvesting has resulted in many snowdrop species becoming threatened. The snowdrop isn’t alone – plants are an abundant source of potential new medicines, often providing us with chemical templates for the design of novel drugs. Yet scientists across the globe say unsustainable use of wild medicinal plants is contributing to biodiversity loss and could limit opportunities to source medicines from nature in the future.
Continue reading...The moss scientist and bestselling author reveals the secrets of these primitive plants – and what they might teach us about surviving the climate crisis
Robin Wall Kimmerer can recall almost to the day when she first fell under the unlikely spell of moss. “It’s kind of embarrassing,” she says. “I’ve always been engaged with plants, because I grew up in the countryside. That was my world. But mosses I’d set aside in my mind as not worthy of attention. I was studying to be a forest ecologist. That little green scum on the rocks: how interesting could it really be? Only then there came a point when I’d taken every botany class our university had to offer, except one: the ecology of mosses. I thought I’d do it, just so I could say that I’d taken them all. It was love at first sight. I remember looking with a lens at these big glacial erratic boulders that were covered in moss, and thinking: there’s a whole world here to be discovered.” Ever since, she has rarely left her house for a walk without such a lens on a string around her neck.
Kimmerer, a professor of environmental biology and the director of the Centre for Native Peoples and the Environment at the State University of New York in Syracuse, is probably the most well-known bryologist at work in the world today. She may be, in fact, the only well-known bryologist at work today (bryology is the study of mosses and liverworts), at least among the general public. But her unlikely success – her fans include the writer Robert Macfarlane and the Pulitzer prize-winning novelist Richard Powers, who gives daily thanks for what he calls her “endless knowledge” – hardly arrived overnight. In 2013, Kimmerer, a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation of Oklahoma, quietly published a book called Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teaching of Plants – a (seemingly) niche read from a small US press.
Continue reading...Suzanne Simard revolutionised the way we think about plants and fungi with the discovery of the woodwide web. The ecologist’s new book shares the wisdom of a life of listening to the forest
When Suzanne Simard made her extraordinary discovery – that trees could communicate and cooperate through subterranean networks of fungi – the scientific establishment underreacted. Even though her doctoral research was published in the Nature journal in 1997 – a coup for any scientist – the finding that trees are more altruistic than competitive was dismissed by many as if it were the delusion of an anthropomorphising hippy.
Today, at 60, she is professor of forest ecology at the University of British Columbia and her research of more than three decades as a “forest detective” is recognised worldwide. In her new book, Finding the Mother Tree – a scientific memoir as gripping as any HBO drama series – she wants it understood that her work has been no brief encounter: “I want people to know that what I’ve discovered has been about my whole life.” Her moment has come: research into forest ecosystems and mycorrhizal networks (those built of connections between plants and fungi) is now mainstream and there is a hunger for books related to the subject: Peter Wohlleben’s The Hidden Life of Trees and Merlin Sheldrake’s Entangled Life – about the hidden life of fungi – extend her thinking about the “woodwide web”, while the heroine of Richard Powers’s Pulitzer prize-winning 2018 novel The Overstory is said to have been inspired by Simard.
Continue reading...Ángel León made his name serving innovative seafood. But then he discovered something in the seagrass that could transform our understanding of the sea itself – as a vast garden
Growing up in southern Spain, Ángel León paid little attention to the meadows of seagrass that fringed the turquoise waters near his home, their slender blades grazing him as he swam in the Bay of Cádiz.
It was only decades later – as he was fast becoming known as one of the country’s most innovative chefs – that he noticed something he had missed in previous encounters with Zostera marina: a clutch of tiny green grains clinging to the base of the eelgrass.
Continue reading...Tree-viewing parties are banned as many coronavirus restrictions remain
Japan will emerge from 10 weeks of coronavirus restrictions on Sunday, just in time for the peak of the annual cherry blossom viewing season.
In normal years, the appearance of the delicate pink flowers is the cue for friends to spread out picnic blankets and lose their inhibitions in a ritual that often involves copious quantities of food and drink, and a nodding recognition of the floral spectacular. But the lifting of the state of emergency, announced earlier this month by the prime minister, Yoshihide Suga, will not be celebrated beneath the sakura.
Continue reading...Many botanists dispute idea of plant sentience, but study of climbing beans sows seed of doubt
They’ve provided us with companionship and purpose during the darkest days of lockdown, not to mention brightening our Instagram feeds. But the potted cacti, yucca, and swiss cheese plants we’ve welcomed into our homes are entirely passive houseguests. Aren’t they?
Research suggests that at least one type of plant – the french bean – may be more sentient than we give it credit for: namely, it may possess intent.
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