Fungal allies arm plant roots against disease by rewriting the rules of infection

Scientists have discovered that beneficial root-dwelling fungi boost plant resilience to disease by remodeling the plant cell ...

Forget flowers: These ancient plants attract pollinators by getting hot

While many modern plants use colorful flowers to attract pollinators, ancient palm-like plants called cycads lure them by ...

These plants can heat themselves up—scientists finally know why

Since the time of the dinosaurs, cycad plants may have attracted insects using infrared light. It may be the world's oldest ...

Infrared radiation may be one of the most ancient plant signals to pollinating insects

Harvard researchers have discovered that cycads—one of the oldest living lineages of seed plants—heat up their reproductive ...
Scientific American

Before Flowers Existed, These Plants Lured Insects With Heat

The words “pollination” and “flower” may seem inseparable, but plants began courting insects millions of years before they ...

A Hot Plant’s Mysterious Signal Makes Beetles Pollinate It

Cycad cones aren’t always hot. Instead, they follow daily cycles of heating and cooling: Pollen-laden male cones produce a big burst of heat in the late afternoon, and then ovulating female cones warm ...

Growing a mix of plants in fields can save farmers money and help the environment – new research

Farmers are struggling to adapt to climate change and its challenges, but new research has some helpful advice.

Asexual parasitic plants break biology’s rules

“My long-standing aim is to rethink what it truly means to be a plant,” Kenji Suetsugu, a botanist at Kobe University in ...