Latest Flower Stories

SAN FRANCISCO, April 16 /PRNewswire/ -- Just in time for the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, PlantSense, Inc. unveiled the new EasyBloom Plant Sensor Plus - a tool that takes the guesswork out of gardening. After taking a "plant's eye view" of light, temperature and soil moisture, EasyBloom Plus recommends plants that will thrive in a particular spot, diagnoses ailing plants, and even "chirps" when a plant needs water. And now, users can have even more insight into the soil with the...

New information about early Native Americans' horticultural practices comes not from hieroglyphs or other artifacts, but from a suite of four gene duplicates found in wild and domesticated sunflowers.In an upcoming issue of Current Biology, Indiana University Bloomington biologists present the first concrete evidence for how gene duplications can lead to functional diversity in organisms. In this case, the scientists learned how duplications of a gene called FLOWERING LOCUS T, or FT, could...

Stopping to smell the flowers might become much more difficult as climate change causes flowers to lose their signature aromas, researchers claim in a report released on Monday.Dr. Abdul Latif Mohamad, Professor Emeritus in Science and Technology at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (National University of Malaysia), discussed his findings with AsiaOne News on March 22. Among his findings were that pollinating flowers were not spreading their seeds as easily because of diminishing scent tissues,...

New research confirms that early angiosperms were weedy, fast-growingFossils and their surrounding matrix can provide insights into what our world looked like millions of years ago. Fossils of angiosperms, or flowering plants (which are the most common plants today), first appear in the fossil record about 140 million years ago. Based on the material in which these fossils are deposited, it is thought that early angiosperms must have been weedy, fast-growing shrubs and herbs found in highly...

Findings fuel ongoing debates over different approaches to dating the tree of lifeFlowering plants may be considerably older than previously thought, says a new analysis of the plant family tree.Previous studies suggest that flowering plants, or angiosperms, first arose 140 to 190 million years ago. Now, a paper to be published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences pushes back the age of angiosperms to 215 million years ago, some 25 to 75 million years earlier than either the...

Power struggle between genetic master switches decides stem cell fate, growth orientation in plantsThe first order of business for any fledgling plant embryo is to determine which end grows the shoot and which end puts down roots. Now, researchers at the Salk Institute expose the turf wars between two groups of antagonistic genetic master switches that set up a plant's polar axis with a root on one end and a shoot on the other."In what is arguably the most important decision for a plant,...

BOSTON, Feb. 25 /PRNewswire/ -- The countdown to spring is on! In just a few weeks, the city of Boston will once again host a major flower show, featuring a new location and an experienced team of show producers to deliver an event like no other. The Boston Flower & Garden Show, held March 24 - 28, 2010 at the Seaport World Trade Center in Boston, will entrance the thousands of visitors with 30 major garden exhibits, celebrities, a garden marketplace, afternoon teas, daily gardening...

Going about their day-to-day business, bees have no need to be able to recognize human faces. Yet in 2005, when Adrian Dyer from Monash University trained the fascinating insects to associate pictures of human faces with tasty sugar snacks, they seemed to be able to do just that. But Martin Giurfa from the Université de Toulouse, France, suspected that that the bees weren't learning to recognize people. 'Because the insects were rewarded with a drop of sugar when they chose human...

Has the almond tree developed a unique way of drawing potential pollinators? A group of researchers at the Department of Environmental and Evolutionary Biology and the Department of Science Education at the University of Haifa-Oranim speculate that the toxin called amygdalin that is found in almond tree nectar is in fact an evolutionary development intended to give that tree an advantage over others in its surroundings.Previous studies have already shown that amygdalin can be found in almond...

Messenger molecule in oral secretions of herbivorous insects changes flower opening time of their host plants: Hummingbirds take over role as pollinators from mothsButterflies and moths are welcome visitors to many plant species. Plants attract insect pollinators with the colors, forms, nectars and scents of their flowers to ensure fertilization and reproduction. However, female moths are also threatening to the plant: Once attracted by the flower's scent, they lay their eggs on the green...