Plant of the Month: Stanhopea Orchids
How did some orchids transform from rare, all-but-inaccessible flowers into popular houseplants you can purchase at a supermarket?
The Marvelous Experiments of Amateur Plant Breeders
Over 100 years ago, a horticulturalist introduced hybrid plants to California gardeners. Up sprouted a movement of amateur experiments in plant biology.
Plant of the Month: Mint
From the fields of ancient Egypt to the present-day American Pacific Northwest, the history of mint goes beyond the search for fresh breath.
Plant of the Month: Turmeric
The plant’s golden color has inspired a long—and potentially deadly—fascination.
Are Galls Miracle Cures or Just Weird Growths on Plants?
For millennia, humans have exploited galls for medicine, fuel, food, tanning, and dyeing. Some people have considered them miraculous.
Plant of the Month: The Sensitive Plant
This plant’s animal-like behavior and alleged love-provoking abilities have sparked the imagination of everyone from early modern yogis to today’s scientists.
Plant of the Month: Agave
The international popularity of tequila threatens the quantity, health, and biodiversity of all species of agave.
Can Crops’ Wild Relatives Save Troubled Agriculture?
Cultivating a limited number of crops reduced the genetic diversity of plants, endangering harvests. Seed collectors hope to fix it by finding the plants’ wild cousins.
Three Ways to Turn Your Apartment into a Sustainable Garden
Even the smallest city dwelling has enough space for a mini-meadow or a few flower pots.
The Beaufort Botanist and Her “Innocent Diversion”
Despite the twelve volume herbarium she created, this seventeenth-century scientist earned little recognition.