Category Archives: Plants

Planting hope: the Syrian refugee who developed virus-resistant super-seeds

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Plant virologist Dr Safaa Kumari discovered seeds that could safeguard food security in the region – and risked her life to rescue them from Aleppo

The call came as she sat in her hotel room. “They gave us 10 minutes to pack up and leave,” Dr Safaa Kumari was told down a crackling phone line. Armed fighters had just seized her house in Aleppo and her family were on the run.

Kumari was in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, preparing to present a conference. She immediately began organising a sprint back to Syria. Hidden in her sister’s house was a small but very valuable bundle that she was prepared to risk her life to recover.

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Utrecht rooftops to be ‘greened’ with plants and mosses in new plan

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‘Vertical forest’ tower will have 10,000 plants on its facade in bid to reinvigorate biodiversity

Every roof in the city district of Utrecht is to be “greened” with plants and mosses or have solar panels installed under plans driven by the success of a similar scheme for the municipality’s bus stops.

The “no roofs unused” policy is part of an attempt to reinvigorate biodiversity in the city and create a less stressful and happier environment, of which the construction of a so-called “vertical forest tower with 10,000 plants on its facade is set to become a leading example.

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Newly waterproofed Arctic seed vault hits 1m samples

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Rapid climate change forced urgent upgrade of ‘failsafe’ doomsday storage facility

The Arctic global seed vault has reached the milestone of having 1m varieties stored in its deep freeze. The new deposits are being made after unexpected flooding of its entrance tunnel in 2017 prompted an upgrade.

Seeds from 60,000 crop varieties from across the world are being placed in the vault to back up those held in other seed banks.

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Massive and malodorous – world’s biggest flower found

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A 111cm-wide Rafflesia was recently discovered but these giants are in danger

The largest single flower ever recorded was found recently in Sumatra, Indonesia, measuring a reported 111cm (3.64ft) across. This was a specimen of Rafflesia tuan-mudae and beat the previous largest flower record of 107cm for Rafflesia arnoldii, also in Sumatra.

Rafflesia is not only a giant flower, but it has no leaves, stems or proper roots. It cannot photosynthesise and instead sucks the food and water out of a particular vine using long thin filaments that look like fungal cells. It gorges itself on the vine for a few years before bursting out into a flower bud, swells for several months before blooming into a flower that looks like a bright red bucket with big thick lobes. It gives off a whiff of rotting meat that, together with its gigantic size, helps attract pollinating flies. Rafflesia also steals some of the DNA from the vine it lives on, using it for its own genetic code for reasons that are not clear.

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Dead rats, putrid flesh and sweaty socks: rare orchid gives UK botanists their first whiff

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The plant has flowered for the first time in Britain, but the climate crisis is making such events rarer than ever

It is famous for smelling like “a thousand dead elephants rotting in the sun”, its petals resemble decaying flesh, and it is so rare that outside its natural habitat in Papua New Guinea, few botanists in the world have ever seen it in flower.

Now this highly pungent orchid – Bulbophyllum phalaenopsis – is in bloom for the first time in a glasshouse at Cambridge University Botanic Garden.

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Superglue plant and ‘miracle berry’ among 2019’s new finds

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Other species identified by Kew experts include a snowdrop and cancer-fighting fungus

A snowdrop discovered on Facebook, a miracle berry that tricks your tastebuds and a rubbery shrub that oozes its own superglue are among new plant species that were discovered in 2019.

Others identified by experts at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, include a ylang-ylang tree of which just seven individuals are known to exist, a new candy-striped violet and a fungus with pink fruiting bodies that can fight cancer and viruses.

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One-third of tropical African plant species at risk of extinction – study

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Experts say new approach to classify plants’ conservation status suggests 7,000 species at risk

A third of plant species in tropical Africa are threatened with extinction, a new study suggests. Plants are crucial to many ecosystems and life in general, providing food and oxygen, as well as being the source of myriad materials and medicines. However, human activities including logging, mining and agriculture pose a major threat.

While the extinction risk of animals around the world has been well studied, the risk facing many plants remains unclear: 86% of mammal species have been assessed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) for its Red List, compared with only 8% of plant species. Now experts say they have come up with a rapid approach to give a preliminary classification.

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Oil spill threatens vast areas of mangroves and coral reefs in Brazil

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Pollution stretches across 2,400km of coastline, with scientists fearing contamination of food chain

Hundreds of kilometres of mangroves and coral reefs, as well as humpback whale breeding grounds, are under threat from an oil spill that has polluted more than 2,400km of Brazil’s north-eastern coast in the last two months.

The Brazilian Navy, which has deployed 8,500 personnel, 30 ships and 17 aircraft in the cleanup operation, said this week that 4,200 tonnes of oil have been removed from beaches, amid fears by scientists that some has already entered the food chain.

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Don’t stare too long: why our feral, polluted canals are so beguiling

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An urban waterway is more than just a short cut through the city – it’s a testament to the power of nature over neglect

The roar of the road is receding with each step down and with it the light is changing; it is dancing, mirrored and then dappled in the ripples of the water. One layer down and the city has become an entirely different place.

I, like many, am using the canal as a quiet cut-through. It smells different down here; there’s the dankness of the water, for sure, but there’s a wealth of green filtering the fumes from above. And the soundscape changes – song birds, the curious grunt of a bank of geese eyeing me and the dog warily, the lap of the water’s edge and the groan of metal sidings that are there to repair the bridge.

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Tree planting ‘has mind-blowing potential’ to tackle climate crisis

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Research shows a trillion trees could be planted to capture huge amount of carbon dioxide

Planting billions of trees across the world is by far the biggest and cheapest way to tackle the climate crisis, according to scientists, who have made the first calculation of how many more trees could be planted without encroaching on crop land or urban areas.

As trees grow, they absorb and store the carbon dioxide emissions that are driving global heating. New research estimates that a worldwide planting programme could remove two-thirds of all the emissions that have been pumped into the atmosphere by human activities, a figure the scientists describe as “mind-blowing”.

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Group of biologists tries to bury the idea that plants are conscious

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Environmental crisis clouding scientific objectivity about plants’ feelings, says botanist

The gardening gloves are off. Frustrated by more than a decade of research which claims to reveal intentions, feelings and even consciousness in plants, more traditionally minded botanists have finally snapped. Plants, they protest, are emphatically not conscious.

The latest salvo in the plant consciousness wars has been fired by US, British and German biologists who argue that practitioners of “plant neurobiology” have become carried away with the admittedly impressive abilities of plants to sense and react to their environments.

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‘Frightening’ number of plant extinctions found in global survey

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Study shows 571 species wiped out, and scientists say figure is likely to be big underestimate

Human destruction of the living world is causing a “frightening” number of plant extinctions, according to scientists who have completed the first global analysis of the issue.

They found 571 species had definitely been wiped out since 1750 but with knowledge of many plant species still very limited the true number is likely to be much higher. The researchers said the plant extinction rate was 500 times greater now than before the industrial revolution, and this was also likely to be an underestimate.

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‘There’s no major city like it’: Toronto’s unique ravine system under threat

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Without urgent action against environmental degradation, the forest ravines covering 20% of the city could be reduced to sterile valleys within decades

It can be difficult to keep up with Lawrence Warriner while walking; running, it’s next to impossible. Many of the trails that weave through the ravines near his house in Toronto are well groomed, but for Warriner – a decorated trail runner and coach – the more exciting ones are off the beaten path, tracks only faintly visible to the eye.

He has come to these forests, which rise along the sides of the river valleys that snake through the city, ever since he was a child. He has discovered a secret communal stone grill next to a sandy beach, hidden by trees; he has watched awestruck as a dozen white-tail deer crossed a bridge. He has also seen things he can’t explain, such as a parade of men, women and children, clad in period clothing, walking the woods at dusk with antique rifles slung over their shoulders.

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