In biology, matters are rarely either good or bad; oftentimes they may be both at once (albeit usually for different organisms). Take for instance hydrogen cyanide, which is widely regarded to be rather bad since it is a potent poison that can kill most living things by ‘interfering’ (that’s a euphemism!) with respiration. However, it [...]

Anne Osterrieder has a new series on her blog called Faces of plant cell biologists, where we are asked a series of questions. So far, it has featured Charlotte Carroll (also an AoBBlog.com guest author here), Chris Hawes and Kentaro Tamura, who all answer Anne’s questions is surprisingly contrasting but  complementary ways. Today, I have been [...]

What happened 670 million years ago? Can’t remember? Doesn’t matter, that’s why we have palaeobotanists. Palaeobotanists that is whose science it seems has been much under-appreciated amidst the high expectations, hope and hype surrounding modern methods of inferring evolutionary information from so-called ‘molecular clocks’. Or at least that appears to be the sub-text to the [...]

This article provides an overview of the development and structure of spore and pollen walls in the major plant groups and summarises progress in our understanding of the molecular genetics underpinning spore/pollen evolution and development.

The rate of molecular evolution of Tricyrtis plant groups as a model system was estimated. The outcome further highlights the importance of conserving biodiversity in a rapidly changing Earth environment. This phylogenetic analyses of Tricyrtis with its high endemism in north-east Asia sheds light on processes of speciation processes.