Flower in Biological News

Male flower parts responsible for potent grapevine perfume: UBC research

University of British Columbia scientists have traced the fragrant scent of grapevine flowers to pollen grains stored in the anthers, contrary to common perception that petals alone produce perfume. While studying grapes used to produce Cabernet Sauvignon from the Okanagan region of British Col...

Male flower parts responsible for potent grapevine perfume: UBC research

University of British Columbia scientists have traced the fragrant scent of grapevine flowers to pollen grains stored in the anthers, contrary to common perception that petals alone produce perfume. While studying grapes used to produce Cabernet Sauvignon from the Okanagan region of British Col...

Kansas state flower receives scientific attention

MANHATTAN, KAN. -- Anyone who has seen Kansas prairies in late summer to early fall can attest to the abundance of sunflowers decorating fields and lining roadways, giving Kansas the well deserved nickname, the Sunflower State. Despite its beauty, the sunflower is more than just a pretty flower...

'Smart' flower bulbs pull themselves to deeper ground

ITHACA, NY -- Confused about the right planting depth for flower bulbs? Trust the bulbs! Researchers have discovered that some flower bulbs are actually "smart" enough to adjust themselves to the right planting depth. A recent study published in the Journal of the American Society for Horticultur...

World's largest flower evolved from family of much tinier blooms

The plant with the world's largest flower -- typically a full meter across, with a bud the size of a basketball -- evolved from a family of plants whose blossoms are nearly all tiny, botanists write this week in the journal Science. Their genetic analysis of rafflesia reveals that it is closely rel...

Researchers find that bumblebees' flower choice matters

To predict where a bumblebee will carry its pollen next, you have to literally think like one. "Once they've learned a foraging style that's been successful, they are more likely to stick with it rather than invest time in learning something new," says Rebecca Flanagan, a graduate student at the ...

The evolution of food plants: Genetic control of grass flower architecture

Scientists are interested in understanding genetic control of grass inflorescence architecture because seeds of cereal grasses (e.g. rice, wheat, maize) provide most of the world's food. Grass seeds are borne on axillary branches, whose branching patterns dictate most of the variation in form see...

Analysis of flower genes reveals the fate of an ancient gene duplication

In a step that advances our ability to discern the ancient evolutionary relationships between different genes and their biological functions, researchers have provided insight into the present-day outcome of a single gene duplication that occurred over a hundred million years ago in an ancestor of ...

The evolutionary triumph of flower power

Enjoying spring flowers? Flowers have flourished ?their beauty evolving over time ?simply because we like them, says Terry McGuire, associate professor of genetics at Rutgers and co-author of a paper that examines for the first time the whys and wherefores of flowering plants in an evolutionary con...

Researchers develop 'brain-reading' methods

...edict the specific mental function of the participants and what information they would report back. "It's like looking at two patterns of identical flower arrangements," says Hanson. "They each may have the same flowers but they will not be arranged exactly in the same manner, consequently leading to sli...

Stunting plants' skyward reach could lead to improved yields

...n State University plant scientist Beronda Montgomery seeks the key to unlock the processes by which stem growth is stimulated at the expense of seed, flower and leaf production. An assistant professor of biochemistry and molecular biology with the Plant Research Laboratory at MSU, Montgomery in July landed...

Protecting the food crops of the future

... Biologists are investigating how to control when plants flower - to help farmers reap a bumper harvest. The University of Leeds team wil...s, that is the order in which they are turned on and off, helps to create a flower at a specific time and in specific environmental conditions. It we could pr...

University of Florida study provides insight into evolution of first flowers

...rida Museum of Natural History. "The origin of the flower is the key to the origin of the angiosperms (flowe...r set of genetic switches, that produced the first flower in the common ancestor of all living flowering pla...or developing more drought-resistant crops. The flower is one of the key innovations of evolution, respon...

Photoselective film proves effective for controlling height in potted gardenia plants

...to reduce plants' internode length, and encourage the production of lateral shoots that create aesthetically pleasing, spherical plants with plentiful flower buds. Chemical sprays are effective at reducing gardenia plant height, but need to be applied regularlya practice that increases the cost of productio...

Findings uncover new details about mysterious virus

...rus matched features seen using the atomic force microscope picture, Rossmann said. The starfish-shaped feature apparently opens up like a blooming flower when the virus is ready to infect its host amoeba, enabling the virus to eject its DNA for insertion into the host, Rossmann said. "In addition, we...

AIBS names 2009 emerging public policy leaders

... sound policies." Roddy's Ph.D. research in integrative biology examines flower physiology and phenology or the timing of development in relation to climate. Roddy is working to understand how flower water requirements may relate to broader ecosystem dynamics, such as the wa...

Flight of the bumble (and honey) bee

... among flowers, typically moving directly from one flower to an adjacent cluster of flowers in the same row ...es can easily move across rows if the next closest flower is in that direction instead of down the row. Most pollen is deposited on the nearest neighboring flower from where pollen was collected. Walters summar...

Select roses survive with minimal care

...the American Society for Horticultural Science journal HortTechnology . flower number, flower size, visual estimate of flowering percentage, plant vigor and overall plan...

Cheap love costs the Earth

...ntributed to the devastation of the ecosystem at the lake. Almost half a million people now live around the shores of the lake - drawn there by the flower trade. The shanty towns that have emerged around the lake have no sanitation- water comes from the lake and sewage returns to it. This pressure - from...

Tips from the American Journal of Pathology

...al findings may impact the development of novel therapeutics based on the anti-migratory actions of annexin A1." Gastardelo TS, Damazo AS, Dalli J, flower RJ, Perretti M, Oliani SM: Functional and ultrastrutural analysis of annexin A1 and its receptor in extravasting neurophils during inflammation. Am ...

Honeybees as plant 'bodyguards'

...the first time that visiting honeybees provide plants with a totally unexpected advantage," the researchers said. "They not only transport pollen from flower to flower, but in addition also reduce plant destruction by herbivores." The findings highlight the importance of indirect effects between apparent...

A big bunch of tomatoes?

... Why do poppies and sunflowers grow as a single flower per stalk while each stem of a tomato plant has se...a genetic mechanism that determines the pattern of flower growth in the Solanaceae (nightshade) family of pl...gulate the timing of development of a branch and a flower so, for example, slowing down the pathway that ma...

Latin American Science Initiative Puts Tropical Rainforest Diversity Online

...ents traditionally compare key characteristics with characters on known, dried plant specimens. To capture even minute features such as leaf hairs and flower parts, samples are scanned using high resolution scanners, making it possible to identify plants by comparing them to the images online. As of Aug. 20...

Annuals converted into perennials

...owth following germination and rapid transition to flower and seed formation, thus preventing the loss of en...veloping their flowers. Thus the appearance of the flower signals means the end of the plant. But fortunatel...hey can continue to grow vegetatively or come into flower much later. Melzer had found that modified crops d...

Wildflower declines in Thoreau's Concord woods are due to climate changes

...ering time response to temperature, notes that since Thoreau's time species flower an average of seven days earlier. Moreover, the mean temperature in the Con...nfluences such as the lack of available insect pollinators or the increased flower or seed predation. The authors found the phonological response to insects m...

Effects of climate change vary greatly across plant families

...tains to higher altitudes, and flowering time can shift. During eras of climate change, plants that cannot adjust their flowering schedule -- and thus flower at sub-optimal times -- may experience dramatic declines in population size and local extinction. ...

Purple tomatoes: The richness of antioxidants against tumors

... has a long standing interest in this plant that we use as a model to study flower development- says lead author Eugenio Butelli- The two genes we have isolated are responsible for flower pigmentation and, when introduced in other plants, turned out to be the pe...

Bumblebees learn the sweet smell of foraging success

... Bumblebees use flower scent to guide their nest-mates to good food sourc...he most rewarding. They learned this best when the flower smell was brought back to the nest by another 'dem...eromone did not affect how well bees learned a new flower scent. However, the pheromone increases foraging a...

Scientists propose the creation of a new type of seed bank

... 2010, 2030, and 2050, for example," said Mazer. "If we found, for example, that the plants that come from seeds that were collected 50 years from now flower much earlier than those that were collected today, we could logically infer that natural selection over 50 years had favored plants, that is genotypes...

Scent on demand: Hebrew University scientists enhance the scent of flowers

...tion of fruit. The intensity of the scent that the flower emanates is influenced by the time of day, depending on weather, age of the flower and the species. In research that was published...archers, to find a way of enhancing the scent of a flower by ten-fold and cause it to emit a scent during da...

When leaves fall, more is occurring than a change of weather

...plant species Arabidopsis thaliana. The ability to control abscission in plants is of special interest to those in the commercial fruit tree and cut flower industries, which rely heavily on abscission-promoting or inhibiting agents to regulate fruit quality and pre-harvest fruit drop. "Understanding th...

Biocontrol insect exacerbates invasive weed

...nt to grow tissue around the insect, encasing it and isolating it from the rest of the plant. "The woody galls wall off the fly larvae from within flower head," says Dean Pearson, lead author on the study and a research ecologist with the U.S.D.A. Forest Service's Rocky Mountain Research station. "The ...

Bitter-tasting nectar and floral odors optimize outcrossing for plants

...ard the pollinators for their efforts. But not all flower visitors are pollinators, as many come only to steal nectar without transporting pollen or eat flower parts. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for ...tic modifications per se did not influence growth, flower formation, nectar production, or the frequency of ...

Plant parasite 'wiretaps' host

...ronize its lifecycle with that of the host plant, Sinha said. "It might be important for the parasite to know when the host is flowering, so it can flower at the same time," before the host dies, she said. Sinha's lab holds a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation to research plant parasites, notably S...

UT Knoxville professor finds unexpected key to flowering plants' diversity

...Williams, an assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at UT Knoxville. For a seeded plant to fertilize, pollen that lands on the flower must grow a tube to carry sperm to the egg. In non-flowering plants, the pathway is usually short, because the pollen tube must destroy cells in its p...

Pollination habits of endangered Texas rice revealed to help preservation

...xana ) found that the pollen of Texas wild-rice can only travel about 30 inches away from a parent plant. If pollen doesn't land on a receptive female flower within that distance, no seeds will be produced. No seeds means no new plants to replenish a population that faces other survival threats. "It woul...

NOAA report states half of US coral reefs in 'poor' or 'fair' condition

... The 569-page document details coral reef conditions in the U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Navassa Island, southeast Florida, the Florida Keys, flower Garden Banks, the Main Hawaiian Islands, the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, American Samoa, the Pacific Remote Islands, the Republic of the Marshall I...

Ethanol byproduct produces green results

... PROSSER, WA Commercial flower and plant growers know all too well that invasive, ubiquitous weeds cause trouble by lowering the value and deterring healthy growth of potted ornamen...

The 21st century tomato

...d with fruit metabolism. The scientists then sampled a number of metabolites such as carbohydrates, pigments, and hormones, among others, throughout flower and fruit development. They also used microarrays to determine which genes were expressed at those same times. Pairwise comparisons and network anal...

Evolution of fruit size in tomato

...size indirectly by affecting the number of carpels, the female parts of the flower that will become seed chambers in the fruit. Most wild tomatoes have only... when the gene is expressed and found it dramatically reduced in developing flower buds in plants with high locule numbers. Further comparisons of this l...