We at Cuttings HQ hate waste. So, when, and rather belatedly, spring-cleaning the Cuttings’ archives in August 2016, I unearthed a news item penned for November 2014 that hadn’t been published – neither in print nor on the AoB Blog! – I knew it had to be given an appropriate airing. And, as luck would […]

One of the biggest plant-related stories of recent times concerns one of the smallest entities and makes the point that you shouldn’t just look so far and no further. It concerns those shape-shifting compound organisms, lichens, that can appear like leaves, tiny bushes and all sorts of morphotypes in between. Traditionally, these communities* have been […]

You can’t escape your heritage; we all go through life with an assortment of ‘baggage’ that betrays our origins, whether it’s our accent, cultural preferences or clothing. And, as regards the latter, the same can be said for chloroplasts, those tiny photosynthetic, cytoplasmic, ‘corpuscles’. Although there is overwhelming evidence for the Serial Endosymbiotic Theory – […]

The changing colour of Greenland could have consequences for the rest of the planet.

The first – and so far only – example of a root fossilized during active growth, which has preserved the cellular organization of the meristem

An investigation into the molecular basis of the adhesive that allows Hedera helix to cling to vertical structures shows that the nanoparticles identified in the adhesive are predominantly composed of arabinogalactan proteins.

Nanoparticles of zinc oxide (ZnO) may aid the use of organic Phosphorus in plants.

We’re not in the habit of posting job advertisements in this column – especially when the application deadlines will have long passed when this collection is published – but some jobs are just too important (and Plant Cuttings’ relevant) not to be highlighted. In early July (2016) when this piece was penned – two of […]

In a world where we might think that bees do all of the plant pollinating, we shouldn’t discount ‘the importance of moths as pollinators for a diverse range of plant species in ecosystems worldwide and, hence, their role in ecosystem functioning’.

Women in the U.S. who live in homes surrounded by more vegetation appear to have significantly lower mortality rates than those who live in areas with less vegetation, according to a new study

They almost literally bite. Glochidiate trichomes in some species of Loasa contain nanocrystalline apatite-cellulose composite, similar to the material found in teeth.

Being an avid supporter of the importance of plants (I do hope that’s come over quite strongly in my various blog items..?), I’m always keen to share with my students [well, any- and everybody really…] how many plant species there are. For several years the best – i.e. biggest! – number I’d found was 352,000 […]