Botany

The rainbow eucalyptus is an unusual tree with a beautiful, multicoloured trunk. The trunk's colours change as the tree sheds strips of bark, creating living art.

English and Spanish bluebells and hybrids between the two species live in British Columbia and in Britain. In each location, the flowers are admired for their beauty but are also a concern. The concerns are a little different in each location but are important.

Unripe lychees and ackee fruits contain toxins. Both fruits should be eaten only when ripe. In addition, it's very important that ripe ackee is prepared properly.

Western red cedar (or western redcedar) is a common and important tree in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The tree was once very significant in First Nations culture and has some interesting features.

Forsythia is an ornamental shrub that produces beautiful and abundant yellow flowers in late winter and early spring. The plant is named after William Forsyth, an eighteenth-century horticulturist.

The bunya pine produces huge and often very heavy cones. Its large seeds are both edible and tasty. The tree has a strange appearance and some unusual features.

Ferns are attractive plants with interesting features. They exist in both wild and cultivated forms. The western sword fern is a common and often impressive plant in coastal British Columbia.

The Himalayan blackberry is a beautiful plant in spring and summer. It produces delicious blackberries, but it's an invasive species and grows aggressively.

Tomatoes are nutritious fruits (or vegetables) with an interesting history, but they often lack flavor compared to tomatoes of the past. A discovery by scientists should be helpful in creating tastier fruits. Some strategies for obtaining tomatoes with a better taste already exist.

The Abutilon menziesii is a native plant in Hawaii, endemic and federally listed as a critically endangered species with only about 500 plants remaining in fewer than 10 naturally-occurring populations throughout the Hawaiian islands. This sprawling shrub is known as Koʻoloa ʻula in Hawaii.

The fate of an American landmark is one of the saddest stories in recent history. The American Chestnut tree was an integral part of the forest landscape when settlers arrived on American shores. However after a airborne virus was introduced, the trees were wiped out by the billions.

The monkey puzzle tree is a very strange and interesting plant. It's native to South America but grows in parks and gardens in other areas as an introduced plant.

TheCereus repandus f. Monstrosa or Monstrose Apple Cactus as it is commonly known is found in gardens in Arizona and for a month in the Spring each year produces beautiful flowers, each lasting one day, for about a month.

Dandelions have culinary benefits and also produce a latex that can be used to make rubber. This is important, since the supply of natural rubber is decreasing.

This article summaries how the pineapple caused a sensation when introduced to Europeans in the late 1400s, and why the love and fascination for the fruit hasn't diminished to the present day.

Plants are a beautiful part of nature, a benefit to life on earth. They affect the food supply and the air we breath. The Manchineel Tree is a poisonous example of plant life. Marked in the Guiness World Book of Records as the most dangerous tree on earth, one bite of its fruit may be fatal.