In the UK, experts have expressed concern that some foragers for wild mushrooms and garlic have been taking too many ingredients from protected sites, putting wildlife at risk, reported The Guardian. The National Trust is concerned that people have been gathering foraged foods to sell them, damaging delicately-balanced ecosystems. “Foraging brings us closer to nature […]
If you’ve ever cared for an orchid, you know that they’re pretty special. From their practically microscopic seeds, to their tasty seed pods, to their worldwide range, these flowering beauties are nothing short of amazing. Here are a few things you probably didn’t know about them. 1. They Are the Largest Family of Flowering Plants […]
In basic terms, plant-based diets are composed mostly or entirely of plants: fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, and grains. Contrary to its colloquial usage, “plant-based” doesn’t automatically mean “vegan.”
The vast majority of the populated planet cannot see the natural night sky because of light pollution; fewer still are the number of Americans or Europeans who can.
Despite the importance of pollinators to the world’s food supply and ecosystem health, surprisingly little is known about which flowers many pollinator species prefer, which flowers are pollinated by which insects and how these interactions fluctuate over time. To help address this issue, University of Sussex researchers have developed a new online database that documents […]
Citizen scientists have helped to discover a fungus previously unknown to science in the soil of the Scottish Highlands. Scientists analyzed 219 soil samples collected by hiking volunteers from 55 “Munros” — or mountains — in Cairngorms National Park last year and found that hidden in the dirt was a new species of fungus from […]
Despite their name, invasive species can be deceptively cute, stunning, or fragrant, inspiring people to introduce them to non-native habitats. But the issue is that some species are moved to a new area, either on purpose or by mistake, and are met with a lack of natural predators, allowing them to crowd out native species.
In the over three decades that Bob Popp has been traipsing through the Vermont woods as the state’s botanist, he had never encountered a small whorled pogonia within the state. He had seen the yellowish-green orchid on excursions to other states, but never in Vermont, where the flower had been considered locally extinct since 1902. […]
When Australian researchers went to find out how much genetic diversity was contained in the seagrass meadows of Shark Bay, a World Heritage Area in Western Australia, they were in for a surprise. The team from The University of Western Australia (UWA) and Flinders University took seagrass shoots covering the range of conditions present in […]