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The first, moss-like plants emerged on land about 470 million years ago. In just 25 million years, they stripped the planet of vital minerals, wrecked Earth's carbon cycle, started an ice age, and caused a mass extinction of marine life. More »
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Venus flytraps can't hurt you, even if you leave your fingers in there for a long time. But what if you were a particularly creative mafioso who needed to dispose of a body? Is there a particular circumstance in which they could digest human flesh? Well, the answer is... More »
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Be careful what you touch, and what you eat. Some vegetation can snuff out your life as surely as a venomous snake. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of poisonous plants in the world, and some of them are deadly. More »
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We're all pretty comfortable with the fact that some flowers have evolved to attract pollinators with their bright colors and intriguing smells, right? But what about when your pollinator relies on hearing for navigation instead of sight? More »
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Some people buy name brand aspirin. Others buy generic, knowing it's the same thing and thinking of the first group as chumps. To them you can now say, "Chumps! I make my own." More »
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Gardners and biologists often grumble about the ways non-native animals and plants have invaded a region, spoiling things for all the locals. Sometimes a non-native species can destroy an ecosystem — a common example is the introduction of rabbits to Australia, where they have no native predators. Sometimes, however, they are far more beneficial than local creatures like the mountain pine beetle, a native species that kills more trees than any other insect in North America. More »
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This is the first map ever produced that shows the global output of plant fluorescence. That means you're seeing the most realistic representation of healthy plant life across the entire face of the Earth. More »
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In 1962's Strange Tales #94, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby teamed up to create the short comic "SAVE ME FROM THE WEED!" In this tale, a weed is bombarded with radioactive dust and immediately conspires to take over the world. More »
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The world is potentially headed into a serious food crisis, thanks to a combination of climate change, land degradation, and depletion of natural resources. And the solution to all this might mean taking plant species back to before their domestication. More »
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At the Crocker Museum in Sacramento, CA, you can visit the world's first restaurant for plants. Light-filtering panels will serve up "prepared" sunlight to the plants, allowing them to taste wavelengths one at a time, instead the usual spectral mess. More »
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The KinnowLS mandarin orange, pictured at right, is incredibly sweet, has almost no seeds, a skin so thin it's easily peeled, and can grow in the desert. And it's a mutant created almost the same way Hulk was. More »
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Ever wonder how we're going to create humans who can breathe underwater? Of course you do. Now a study published this week about how algae insinuate themselves into salamander embryos (and DNA) could provide the beginnings of an answer. More »
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This perfectly fossilized flower has been unearthed 125 million years after it grew. Some scientists speculate that it was part of a revolution that took down the dinosaurs. More »
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Though orchids are considered some of the most beautiful flowers in the world, their scent has evolved over eons to precisely emulate the smell of a dead body. In fact, according to biologists, orchids emit an odor extremely similar to roadkill. Why would flowers need to stink of death? More »
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Lacking any sort of nervous system, how do carnivorous plants like the aquatic bladderworts move with enough speed and purpose to catch their prey? These waterbound bug eaters are covered in tiny bladders which they've squeezed all the water out of, leaving them with an internal pressure lower than outside.

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The tiny bladderwort plant may not be much to look at - and yeah, its name is beyond silly - but it's the deadliest hunter in the plant kingdom. It can trap prey in less than a millisecond, over a hundred times faster than the Venus fly-trap and with an incredible 600 Gs of force - about twelve times what it would take to kill a human. Let's just hope these things don't develop a taste for human flesh. More »
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Botanists estimate there are 70,000 species of flowering plant still waiting to be identified. They also suspect that about half of those were already found up to 200 years ago, and nobody has gotten around to identifying them yet. More »
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One click and you'll have no trouble understanding the name. More »
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It's a scifi thought experiment in the form of transient plant art. Author and artist Jonathon Keats, who previously created pornography for trees, worked with California State University to send some cacti and potatoes to Mars and beyond. More »
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The lovely scent of cut grass is the reek of plant anguish: When attacked, plants release airborne chemical compounds. Now scientists say plants can use these compounds almost like language, notifying nearby creatures who can "rescue" them from insect attacks. More »
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One of the great mysteries of plant biology is a seemingly immortal tree called the Trembling Aspen (Populus tremuloides), which reproduces by growing clones from its root system. A new study suggests that the trees live for 20,000 years. More »
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When you see green waves like this washing up on shore, probably your first thought is: Toxins! Luckily, in the case of this beach near San Diego, this bizarre coloration comes from something harmless. More »
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Genetically-modified canola has been breeding undetected in the American wilds for at least "several generations," say scientists. The escaped GM canola has already mutated into a never-before-seen strain, and now it may be modifying other plants too. More »
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Plants are able to assess their environment by analyzing light, and are able to "remember" light they have experienced recently. By analyzing chemical reactions in leaves, scientists have come to appreciate that plants possess a kind of intelligence. More »
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The fast-growing kudzu vine may be responsible for more toxic emissions of ozone than cars. Not only are these plants releasing chemicals into the air that harm humans, but they are spreading unchecked across the Eastern US. More »
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Egad, look at this poor tree! Some bulbous, parasitic infection is leaching the life right out of it! Could this creature arrive at to your local park? Are we looking at the onset of an arboreal apocalypse? More »
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Flowers may use UV patterns to attract bees. See how, and check out photos that shows us approximately what a bee sees when it looks at flowers. More »
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Just because plants are at the bottom of the food chain doesn't mean they're helpless. Scientists have discovered that plants have evolved multiple lines of defense against their predators, giving them a surprising amount of control of their surrounding ecosystem. More »
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Carl Zimmer has written a great essay for National Geographic about the indignities suffered when fauna are eaten by flora. It's accompanied by Helene Schmitz's utterly beautiful images of deadly plants, and we've got a lusciously disturbing gallery. More »
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Artist Jonathon Keats used to make porn movies for plants, but with new project Strange Skies he's gone legit. It's a travel documentary, and he's screening it in New York City this month - to a theater packed with plants. More »
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So far you can only visit Pandora in the movies, but Singapore's planned Marina South Gardens project will combine its own man-made and natural wonders — with lush, vertical gardens scaling gigantic artificial solar trees. More »
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Suddenly, Attack of the Killer Tomatoes seems just a little bit closer to reality with the news that tomatoes are carnivorous. No, you didn't misread that: Tomatoes are carnivorous... and so are potatoes. Everything you knew is wrong, people. More »
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We're being invaded by plant people. Check out these tiny little Terrariums aliens from Matteo Cibic. They are each hand blown and cost a whopping $139 each, but you will have your own tiny Triffid. [via Apartment Therapy] More »
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Photographer Rachel Sussman travels around the world taking pictures of organisms that have been alive for thousands of years, and will still be around long after we're gone — from venerable bushes to bacteria that's survived over 400,000 years. More »
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In Dash Shaw's Body World, a drug-addicted botanist travels to a small suburb to investigate the hallucinogenic qualities of a mysterious plant. When he smokes it, he finds himself getting closer to the town's inhabitants than he ever cared to. More »
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A team at University of Leicester is using nature against itself for the first time in Europe. They are calling it "biocontrol"; the team is bringing in sap-sucking insects from Japan to control an invasive plant species called Knotweed. More »
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It's no Triffid, but a new species of giant pitcher plant discovered in the highlands of the Philippines has a hunger for mammalian flesh. Fortunately, they're mostly interested in insects and rodents — at least for now. More »
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The BBC announced last week that it plans to remake The Day of the Triffids, the classic tale of flesh eating plants that prey on a blinded humanity. Plants may seem sweet and innocent, rooted to the ground or sitting in pots on your windowsill. But our list of the deadly plants found throughout science fiction prove that flora can be more dangerous than you’d ever imagined.
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A kleptoplast is an organism that steals genes from other organisms, usually by eating them. Usually those stolen genes don't actually function, but not so in the case of the leafy green E. chlorotica sea slug. This little guy uses plant genes to generate its own photosynthesis factory - after eating its favorite kind of algae, the E. chlorotica can live entirely on solar power for up to a year. More »
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Entire species of plants are dying off in droves, just like mammals. And there's no way to save them all, say scientists. How do you decide which plant species to preserve at all costs, and which ones to consign to oblivion forever? Answering that question may mean the difference between selective extinction for some — and worldwide extinction for all. More »
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