With this August being the hottest the UK has seen for the last 17 years, it seems fitting that this fiery, energetic flower is its symbol. Gladioli have found worldwide fame and feature heavily in art, folklore and popular culture.
Author: Bethany Nichols
PhD candidate and botanist, using mathematical modelling and computer simulations to investigate the effects of environmental and climate change on plant populations.
What do you mean it’s not a plant?!
If it looks like a plant and it acts like a plant, it could be an animal, algae or fungus. Organisms are beautifully diverse, but sometimes the lines between them can be blurry and it's not until you look at their micro-structures that you realise they're not the same at all.
Plant science in The Legend of Zelda
In the Legend of Zelda, Link can interact with many plants, using some in food and elixirs to increase his strength and battle others as "final bosses". In this post, we're going to explore three plants from different games in the Legend of Zelda sseries and meet their real-life counterparts.
Cuckoo Flower
One wildflower with some of the most beautiful common names is arguably the Cuckoo Flower. Its other common names tell us about its habitat, uses, association with heritage, and also feature a little bit of rude botany.
Making the grass greener with Sara Middleton
Today we're meeting PhD student Sara Middleton from the University of Oxford, who's studying the effect of drought on a UK calcareous grassland. Sara's love for plants spreads across all aspects of her life and she runs an outreach project, YouTube channel and is also working on a documentary to get other's involved too.
Photosynthesis: what they didn’t teach you in school
From blood red seas to photosynthetic sea slugs, the story of photosynthesis is incredibly interesting. In this post, I hope to convince you there is so much more to this vital reaction, and to continue your own research into its rich history.
Fruits of our labour: three homegrown fruit trees
Growing fruit trees can be a labour of love, but they are absolutely worth the effort. They also serve as a reminder of the thousands of years of agriculture our ancestors went through to produce these high yielding, delicious rewards.
Spider Plant
Many of us have the beautiful leaves of our Spider Plant elegantly draped off of shelves and cupboards around our homes. But how much do we really know about them and why have they been studied by NASA?
Publishing my first paper
On Tuesday 30th June 2020, my first first-author paper was published in Ecology letters. The journey from idea to publication was long, complicated and a dramatic learning curve. In this post, I'll break my journey down into five milestones and five pieces of advice I wish I could go back and tell myself.
The Birth Flower of July: Delphinium
July, in the Northern Hemisphere, is associated with the peak of summer, so Delphinium seems the perfect choice to emulate a deep blue sky and endless ocean.
