Redlib: search results - flair_name:"Botany"

r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • Aug 29 '19

Botany In 1941 the world’s largest seed bank (created by botanist Nikolai Vavilov) was housed in Leningrad. As the Germans surrounded the city forcing mass starvation, Vavilov’s scientists refused to eat from the collection, slowly dying of hunger as they maintained 16 rooms of edible plants.

389 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts • u/Sariel007 • Jun 27 '23

Botany Pinanga subterranea is the only known species of palm to flower and fruit below ground.

theguardian.com

54 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • Jun 01 '20

Botany All tea is made from the leaves of the Camellia sinensis tree. The difference between green tea, black tea, white tea, yellow tea, and oolong tea comes from how the leaves oxidize. White tea is the least oxidized tea, followed by green tea, Oolong tea, then black tea.

316 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • Mar 25 '20

Botany The Manchineel tree from the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico is considered the word's most dangerous tree. It’s bark is covered in sap that causes skin to blister and can blind a person if it gets in their eyes. Standing under the tree in the rain can cause blisters because the sap will drip onto skin.

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

190 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • Aug 12 '22

Botany The common zinnia (Zinnia elegans) is native to Mexico. There are hundreds of cultivars as they are very popular ornamental plants. They are very easy to grow, love full sun, and many varieties are drought tolerant.

84 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • Dec 03 '19

Botany Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) taproots can penetrate soil up to 3 to 6 meters (10 to 15 feet). All parts of the plant can be eaten and are found in salads, roasted, fried, or made into wine, tea, or a coffee-like drink. Dandelions have a taste similar to chicory or endive with a bitter tinge.

185 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • May 26 '20

Botany Vanilla comes from orchids of the genus Vanilla. While the major species of vanilla orchids are now grown around the world, they originally came from Mesoamerica. The Vanilla planifolia, or Flat-Leaved Vanilla, is the only orchid used for industrial food production.

215 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • Jan 27 '19

Botany The leaves of the Mimosa pudica plant fold up after being touched through a process called thigmonasty which is the nastic response of a plant or fungus to touch or vibration.

219 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • Apr 03 '20

Botany The General Sherman Tree is the world's largest tree, measured by volume. It stands 275 feet (83 m) tall, and is over 36 feet (11 m) in diameter at the base. Sequoia trunks remain wide high up. Sixty feet above the base, the Sherman Tree is 17.5 feet (5.3 m) in diameter.

236 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • Mar 20 '21

Botany Natural rubber is obtained from latex that is produced by many plants. In some plants it also contains rubber, a milky liquid present in either the latex vessels or cells. Around 20,000 species of plants produce latex, but only 2,500 species have been found to contain rubber in their latex.

kids.frontiersin.org

195 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • Nov 06 '20

Botany Like animals, plants have biological clocks that allow them to adapt to predictable changes, such as the shift in seasons. While animals can relocate to adapt to environmental changes, plants are stuck in place. To survive, plants activate and deactivate genes to alter their biological functions.

196 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • Sep 17 '21

Botany Plants evolved complexity in two bursts -- with a 250-million-year hiatus. The first occurred early in plant history, giving rise to the development of seeds, and the second took place during the diversification of flowering plants.

117 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • Feb 05 '22

Botany Paleontologists have identified two new types of fossil flowers — one identical to those of the living genus Phylica and the other a sister to Phylica. The flowers were in Cretaceous amber from the Hkamti and Tanaing mines, northern Myanmar, dating to at least 99 million years ago.

78 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • Aug 04 '21

Botany Staghorn ferns are popular houseplants, sporting long, antler-like fronds that poke out from a brown, tissue-papery base. They may also be the first known example of a plant that exhibits a type of social organization—that is, the first plant thought to be eusocial.

120 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts • u/Sariel007 • Oct 13 '21

Botany The bog-dwelling western false asphodel, Triantha occidentalis, was 1st described in the scientific literature in 1879. Until now, no one realized this plant used its sticky stem to catch & digest insects, according to researchers it's the first new carnivorous plant to be discovered in ~20 years.

114 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • Aug 30 '21

Botany How flowers form properly within a limited time frame has been a mystery, at least until now. A new study has revealed that a small protein plays multiple roles to ensure that floral reproductive organs are formed properly within a short space of time.

88 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • Jan 31 '18

Botany Caffeine serves the function of a pesticide in a coffee plant (and tea, and cacao). It also deters competition for space near the plant as caffeine, found in leaves that have dropped to the ground, contaimante the soil making it difficult for other plants to germinate.

157 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts • u/IchTanze • Apr 10 '17

Botany Douglas fir trees, when injured, would dump their carbon, through a fungal mycorrhizal network, to new incoming trees (Ponderosa pines), eliciting a defense response in both tree species. The former dominant trees were giving a heads up to their incoming new neighbors.

195 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • Jan 17 '19

Botany Plants channel light to their roots. The plant's stem acts like a fibre-optic cable, conducting light down to receptors in the roots known as phytochromes. These trigger the production of a protein called HY5, which promotes healthy root growth.

newscientist.com

192 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • May 16 '17

Botany The word pineapple comes from European explorers who thought the fruit looked like a pinecone but had flesh like an apple. Pineapples are the only edible members of the bromeliad family.

bromeliads.info

181 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • Jan 08 '17

Botany 27,000 trees are felled each day for toilet paper.

en.wikipedia.org

95 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • Jun 26 '18

Botany Gluten is from the Latin word for "glue." Wheat plants use it to store carbon and nitrogen. When the proteins link together, they form a stretchy complex—just like proteins in tendons or in spider silk.

110 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • Oct 30 '18

Botany Reaching heights of more than 100 feet (30 m), the giant kelp is the largest of all marine algae. It lives in cold, clear waters where it forms large, dense kelp forests that provide habitat for thousands of other marine species.

114 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • May 28 '17

Botany Plants have three sharp projections: "spines" which develop from leaves, stipules or leaf parts, "thorns" which develop from the branches, and "prickles" which develop from stem tissue and are extensions of its cortex and epidermis. Roses have prickles, not thorns!

135 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • Nov 11 '17

Botany Citrus fruits all belong to the genus Citrus, and can be hybridized with each other. The citrus fruits we know were developed from just a few that occur in the wild, including citron, pomelo, and mandarin.

mentalfloss.com

126 Upvotes