Tom Shakespeare talks about reductionism in biology, a problem all plant scientists should be worrying about.

Apomicts are plants grown from seeds or spores are produced without fertilization.

What have Arabidopsis thaliana, Lotus japonicus, Zea mays, Lemna gibba and Hemerocallis got in common? They’re all model plants.

An entry by R. Siva and S. Babu of VIT University. Plant Systematics involves the recognition, comparison, classification and naming the millions of plants that have existed and exist at present on the earth. India is rich in plant diversity and possesses almost 7% of the world’s flowering plants.1 In addition, India has a relatively [...]

What do you make of this: ‘In the 18th century, not yet 30 years old, she became the first woman to travel around the world. Along the way she helped collect thousands of plant specimens, some of which were new species. And she did it all dressed as a man’? Sounds incredible, I know but [...]

First came Flora Novae Angliae, the definitive manual for the identification of native and naturalized vascular plants of New England. Now comes the website with thousands of full-color images and illustrations for teaching and learning botany. Dr Elizabeth Farnsworth has told us about the New England Wild Flower Society’s announcement of the first stage of Go [...]

OK, that’s the answer, what was the question? Who invented the dichotomous key for identification? Well, as anybody who has taught students about keys and their use as tools for plant ID (or even for animals if you must!) will probably agree, the consensus is that the oft-derided French former botanist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck is credited [...]