Balanophora plants represent an extreme example of this shift. They do not produce their own food through photosynthesis but ...

Some plants bend the rules of plant life so far that they barely resemble plants at all. Balanophora is one of them - a ...

In the damp understory of forests in Taiwan, mainland Japan, and Okinawa, a plant called Balanophora can fool you at first ...

Balanophora is a plant that abandoned photosynthesis long ago and now lives entirely as a parasite on tree roots, hidden in dark forest undergrowth. Scientists surveying rare populations across East ...

The study reveals how Balanophora plants function despite abandoning photosynthesis and, in some species, sexual reproduction. Their plastid genomes shrank dramatically in a shared ancestor, yet the ...

Trees need sunlight for the same reason you need food. The energy from the Sun’s rays is a crucial ingredient in how plants make their own food that helps them power all their cells. Since trees don’t ...

Scientists have improved on the natural process of photosynthesis, not only growing plants more efficiently, but doing so in the dark. This could expand agriculture to areas that don’t get enough ...

Plants and trees may seem pretty passive, but behind the scenes, their cells are working hard to put on a magic show. In this episode of Crash Course Botany, we’ll explore how the processes of ...

Alizée Malnoë ascends a spiral staircase to Myers Hall’s fourth floor “greenhouse,” one lacking windows. Just within stands metal shelving, housing trays of seedlings haloed by grow lights. She ...

Experiments suggest that it might become possible to nourish plants without photosynthesis—a tool that could one day help feed astronauts and a crowded planet. Canola seedlings can take up acetate, a ...

Global food demand is a global dilemma. Over the past century, the world population has quadrupled. Food demand is expected to grow between 59 to 98 percent by 2050, yet it may not be possible for the ...

Ancient rocks from a remote Canada island contain the oldest algae ever discovered. The samples, found on Canada's Baffin Island, also reveal roughly when plants had the components necessary for ...