botanic notables

Articles (75) | Photos (1) | Answers (0)

Articles & Photos

Fire is generally the death knell for many plants, but the beautiful flowering shrubs and trees of the genus Banksia are adapted to even thrive in wildfires—in fact, the plants need fire to reproduce.

Botanic Superlatives: The Smallest Flowering Plant

By Anna Laurent

You probably won't find these flowers at any summer weddings, but the water-dwelling plant would be a perfect accent at the world's tiniest garden party. Sparking like tiny green jewels, each less than a millimeter in diameter, the Wolffia globosa is the smallest flowering plant in the world.

Botanic Superlatives: The Largest Water Lily

By Anna Laurent

The leaves reach nine feet (almost three meters); its nocturnal blossoms are white with the first moon, and pink with the second, with a sweet aroma that will fill the night. Victoria water lilies (Victoria amazonica) are the largest in the world, and have been marveled at since first discovered in 1801.

Botanic Notables: Urban Forager Steve "Wildman" Brill

By Anna Laurent

"The Wildman" Steve Brill has moved into the digital age with an iPhone app that can help you identify wild edibles, with harvesting methods and tips to avoid poisonous lookalikes!

Botanic Notables: The Bashful Plant

By Anna Laurent

Mimosa pudica, or the bashful plant, is the introvert of the garden, yet, with a coy choreography that is curiously beautiful, it is impossible not to touch, and has fascinated botanists for centuries. At a light caress, its fern-like leaves will fold inward; a gentle thrust will collapse the petiole.

Botanic Superlatives: The First Flower

By Anna Laurent

A 125-million-year-old fossil is an ancestor of the buttercup, and a solution to Darwin's "abominable mystery" of the origin of flowering plants.

Botanic Notables: The Fig Tree with its Own Address

By Anna Laurent

Santa Barbara's Moreton Bay fig tree is a legend. It is the largest in the country—the tree's circumference is 42 feet, its height is twice that, and the canopy spans almost 200 feet—in fact, it even has its own address.

Prince William and Kate's Honeymoon Souvenir: A Giant Seed

By Claire Lui

One of our most popular botanic superlative columns was about the seed of the coco-de-mer (The Largest Seed), which, according to the British tabloids, was a honeymoon souvenir for Prince William and his new bride, Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge, from their time in the Seychelles Islands. After all, who doesn't want a giant, bottom-like nut for their new house?

Related Topics: Brown | botanic notables | botanic superlatives | coco de mer | royals

Botanic Notables: The Smallest Orchid

By Anna Laurent

The discovery of the world's smallest orchid is, fittingly, the story of an intrepid explorer, an enigmatic flower, and the curious luck that brought them together. All but transparent, the flower's petals are one-cell thick, and its blossom is just 2.1 mm wide from tip to tip.

Botanic Notables: The Mother of Thousands

By Anna Laurent

Keeping a close eye on her developing progeny, this Kalanchoe succulent, nicknamed "the mother-of-thousands" is as prolific as it is maternal—hundreds of tiny plants actually grow on the mother's arms. When released, each plantlet falls to the ground to take root on its own—now the next "mother" in the lineage, never too far from home.