Plants

One species of tropical tree seems not only to survive lightning strikes but also to thrive because of them

Botanist Mason Heberling challenges how we think about invasive species and our role in their spread.

A tiny, woolly flower found hiding in Texas’s Big Bend National Park shows the intriguing strangeness of sunflowers

Microplastics can cut a plant’s ability to photosynthesize by up to 12 percent, new research shows

Learn which molecules are responsible for giving Christmas trees their distinct, crisp-yet-spicy scent

O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum, where’s your instruction manual? Here’s how to make the most of your Christmas tree

Evolution is often depicted as a steady forward march from simple to complex forms. But new research shows that certain ferns can evolve “backward”

A tree’s fall palette offers a glimpse at its health and the weather it has experienced in a given year

A curator at the New York Botanical Garden explains what we can learn about the past and the present from houseplant trends.

A bioluminescent petunia led me to a world of radiant mushrooms, 19th-century experiments and a modern rivalry between scientists in Russia and the Americas

A tall cactus found only in Florida’s Key Largo is the U.S.’s first species to go extinct from sea-level rise

Historian and ecologist Laura J. Martin rediscovers the female scientists who established ecological restoration in her book Wild by Design