National Geographic photographer Martin Oeggerli took a series of gorgeous, and (oddly) recognizably sexual photographs of pollen in action. In this gallery - and many other photographs of his in the National Geographic gallery - you can see how the plant sexual cycle works. From feather-borne pollen to a piece of pollen that is growing a sperm injector, every kind of flower smut is represented.

You can see more of Oeggerli's work on his website.

via National Geographic (thanks, Marilyn Terrell!)

Geranium
Flowering quince
Forget Me Not
Indian mallow - this pollen shape is designed to stick to bird wings.
Pine
Snowball blossom - pollen has fallen into the stigma of another snowball blossom, and the pollen is swelling with water. One pollen grain is growing a tube that can inject sperm into the flower.
Willow - this piece of pollen will die, because it got trapped between two petals before pollenating anything.

During a recent expedition to the Philippines' central highlands, a group of botanists discovered several unusual and previously undocumented plants and fungi. Among these discoveries was the Nepenthes attenboroughii, which they named for naturalist and carnivorous plant enthusiast David Attenborough. One of the largest pitcher plants ever discovered, N. attenboroughii produces pitchers up to two liters in volume, which attract and trap small animals. Like other carnivorous plants, N. attenboroughii traps and eats insects, but can also snack on rodents as large as rats.

They're attractive enough that I wouldn't mind having a couple around as organic mouse traps, but I'd certainly keep some weedkiller handy in case it pulls a Little Shop of Horrors and starts singing showtunes about killing my dentist.

Giant 'meat-eating' plant found [BBC via Reddit]

Seeds that spread on the wind in cities mostly wind up dead on the concrete, while seeds that fall usually find a spot to grow in the same street plots or concrete cracks where their parents grew. (You can see the two kinds of seeds at left.) Because seeds grew up so close to home, the plants evolved super quickly — sort of an urban Galapagos Islands effect. (One of the ways that Darwin first observed natural selection was on a trip past the tiny, isolated Galapagos Islands, each of which had evolved its own unique types of finches that interbred quickly and in isolation from finches on other islands.)

The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published the researchers' study today, noting:

The authors took Crepis sancta seeds from several locations in the city of Montpellier, France, and grew the plants in a greenhouse, observing what fraction of seeds produced were of the light, easily dispersed type. Compared to plants from the countryside, plants from urban patches consistently produced fewer light seeds. Based on a mathematical model of breeding, the researchers estimate that the current version of urban Crepis sancta took approximately 12 years to evolve. They report that plants in a fragmented urban setting thus become doubly isolated, as reduced seed dispersal would likely lower gene flow and hence chances of species survival.

Rapid evolution of C. sancta [PNAS]