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You’ve read about plants that eat animals, like the Venus Flytrap and the Pitcher Plant. Philcoxia does it, too, but you can’t see it, because this Brazilian plant works underground, using sticky leaves that grow under the soil. Researchers Caio Pereira and Peter Fritsch have been studying how Philcoxia gets its nutrients.
In 2007, Peter Fritsch found a possible answer. He noticed nematode worms stuck to the underground leaves, and reasoned that the plant was trapping and digesting them. Pereira, working with Fritsch, has now confirmed this hypothesis.
He found that Philcoxia’s underground leaves are littered with the bodies of dead nematodes. To check that the deaths aren’t coincidental, Pereira bred nematodes so that their bodies were full of nitrogen-15 – a rare and heavier-than-usual version of the element. He then “fed” the nematodes to Philcoxia. Two days later, Pereira found that 15 percent of the nitrogen-15 in the worms has been incorporated into the plant’s leaves. It was clear proof that Philcoxia was digesting the nematodes and absorbing the remains into their bodies.
Many meat-eating plants digest their prey with high concentrations of enzymes called phosphatases. Philcoxia does so too. Pereira found loads of the enzymes on Philcoxia’s leaves, which means that the plants are probably digesting the nematodes directly.
Read more at Not Exactly Rocket Science. Link
The plants of the genus Platycerium are more commonly known as Staghorn or Elkhorn ferns. They grow on trees, but are not parasites, because they generate their own nutrition from water and sunlight. However, they grow on other trees, and produces two types of fern fronds -one to catch sunlight, the other to surround its roots, hold water, and connect the plant to the tree. Read more about these fascinating ferns and see lots of pictures at Kuriositas. Link -via the Presurfer
(Image credit: D. Gordon E. Robertson)
Short RNA sequences (microRNA) from plants have been found in mammals, with recent news that they can influence gene expression in humans. One microRNA found in rice restricts a protein that helps remove particles linked to bad cholesterol.
Chen-Yu Zhang, a molecular biologist at Nanjing University in China, was studying the role of circulating microRNAs in health and disease when he discovered that microRNAs are present in other bodily fluids such as milk. This gave him the “crazy idea” that exogenous microRNAs, such as those ingested through the consumption of milk, could also be found circulating in the serum of mammals, he recalled.
To test his hypothesis, Zhang and his team of researchers sequenced the blood microRNAs of 31 healthy Chinese subjects and searched for the presence of plant microRNAs. Because plant microRNAs are structurally different from those of mammals, they react differently to oxidizing agents, and the researchers were able to differentiate the two by treating them with sodium periodate, which oxidizes mammal but not plant microRNAs.
To their surprise, they found about 40 types of plant microRNAs circulating in the subjects’ blood—some of which were found in concentrations that were comparable to major endogenous human microRNAs.
By identifying the function of plant RNA in gene expression, scientists can further determine how diet impacts our health positively or–as in the case of rice on cholesterol–negatively.
Link -via Discover | Image credit Christian Guthier
Officials have noticed increased sightings of the plant called Giant Hogweed. It is found throughout North America, but if you see one, stay away. The sap from this plant will burn your skin and cause painful blisters that last for days, maybe months. Buzzfeed has images of the plant so you can identify it, and some possibly disturbing pictures of what it can do to you. Link
(Image credit: Wikipedia user Farbenfreude)
Oh sure, blame it on the plant! No word on where this photo was taken, as it was posted without a source. Link -via Geeks Are Sexy
A cycad tree of the ancient species Encephalartos woodii was brought from Africa to the Kew Gardens in London in 1895. Since then, it has been cloned, but cannot reproduce in the normal way, because it is male -and it may be the only natural example of its species left in the world.
Researchers have wandered the Ngoya forest and other woods of Africa, looking for an E. woodii that could pair with the one in London. They haven’t found a single other specimen. They’re still searching. Unless a female exists somewhere, E. woodii will never mate with one of its own. It can be cloned. It can have the occasional fling with a closely related species. Hybrid cycads are sold at plant stores, but those plants aren’t the real deal. The tree that sits in London can’t produce a true offspring. It sits there, the last in its long line, waiting for a companion that may no longer exist.
“Surely this is the most solitary organism in the world,” writes biologist Richard Fortey, “growing older, alone, and fated to have no successors. Nobody knows how long it will live.”
The tree produced a cone in 2004 for the first time ever, which is the signal for reproduction, but there was no female for it to pollinate. Link
(Image credit: Andrew McRobb/RBG Kew)
Previously: Another species of cycad at Kew Gardens is even older.
This reminds me of a movie… I believe it was The Blob. But this is a real plant that grows in the high elevations in Chile, Argentina, Peru and Bolivia. It’s called Yareta or Llareta. Find out all about it and see more pictures at Kuriositas. Link
(Image credit: Flickr user Nicole Courneya)
A rare species of lady’s slipper orchid (Cypripedium fargesii) grows black spots that look like a fungus. But it’s not a fungus; it’s a feature, as Zong-Xin Ren of the Chinese Academy of Sciences found out during four years of research.
The lady’s slippers are generally pollinated by bees but C.fargesii is different. Over many hours of observation, the only insects that Ren ever saw leaving the flowers were flat-footed flies. Ren captured four of them and when he peered at them under an electron microscope, he saw pollen grains from the orchid, and spores from a fungus called Cladosporium. This fungus infects leaves and fruits, and when it does so, it produces black mould spots. The purpose of the orchid’s black splotches was becoming clear.
Ren also analysed the orchid’s scent, an unpleasant fragrance reminiscent of rotting leaves. He found that the flower produces over 50 aromatic molecules that are found in other flowers, but three unusual ones that are common to Cladosporium moulds.
Like they always say, you catch more flies with fungus than with vinegar. Cypripedium fargesii is not the only orchid that attracts pollinating insects by deception, as you’ll see in the article at Not Exactly Rocket Science. The article also illustrates the importance of humorous headlines. Link
Jonathon Keats is opening a restaurant in San Francisco, Sacramento but it doesn’t serve food. It doesn’t even serve humans. The Photosynthetic Restaurant caters to plants! He filters sunlight in various combinations to make the rays appetizing and nutritious for the plants. Humans are welcome to come and watch, and to contemplate how much we take plants for granted.
“My recipes are all based on the scientific study of plant physiology, applied to the fine art of cuisine,” Keats told Wired.com. “I’m publishing the recipe book so gardeners everywhere can prepare gourmet sunlight for their plants at home. For people who are lazier, or keep only a few plants indoors, I packaged my signature recipes for easy consumption by videotaping select wavelengths of natural sunlight and editing them into a quick and convenient TV dinner.
“I tried it out on my plants at home, and as far as I can tell, they responded well to my delectable mixtures of orange, violet and yellow, although I can’t be certain,” he added. “Cuisine is a form of communication, and mine won’t be complete until plants evolve a mechanism for food criticism.”
It’s what they call concept art. The Photosynthetic Restaurant will be open April 16-July 17 at the Crocker Art Museum. Read all about it at Underwire. Link
(Image credit: Crocker Art Museum)
Day after day the passionflower vine and the handsome heliconius butterfly engage each other in a dramatic fight for survival in the tropical forests of Central and South America. The outcome is still uncertain, but the battle rages on.
Heliconius butterflies choose to lay eggs on the leave of passionflower vines. When the eggs hatch, the offspring feed hungrily on the leaves, threatening to eat the vines out of existence. But the vines have learned to fight back; they have evolved a series of defenses to limit the damage.
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by MrGhaz.
When it comes to light, scientists have found that plants can "think" and "remember" in ways very similar to our own nervous system:
In their experiment, the scientists showed that light shone on to one leaf caused the whole plant to respond.
And the response, which took the form of light-induced chemical reactions in the leaves, continued in the dark.
This showed, they said, that the plant "remembered" the information encoded in light.
"We shone the light only on the bottom of the plant and we observed changes in the upper part," explained Professor Stanislaw Karpinski from the Warsaw University of Life Sciences in Poland, who led this research.
A new species of pitcher plant has been discovered in the Philippines. The giant pitcher (Nepenthes attenboroughii) lives high on Mount Victoria, and was reported by missionaries who were lost in the mountain area in 2000. An expedition to find the giant pitcher was held in 2007 by natural history explorer Stewart McPherson, botanist Alastair Robinson, Andreas Fleischmann, and three guides.
Pitchers create tube-like leaf structures into which insects and other small animals tumble and become trapped.
The team has placed type specimens of the new species in the herbarium of the Palawan State University, and have named the plant Nepenthes attenboroughii after broadcaster and natural historian David Attenborough.
“The plant is among the largest of all carnivorous plant species and produces spectacular traps as large as other species which catch not only insects, but also rodents as large as rats,” says McPherson.
(image credit: Stewart McPherson)
It took three months of planning, a crane, and nine gardeners to transfer a palm tree called a cycad to a new pot. The operation at Kew Gardens in London was difficult and delicate because the tree is considered to be the oldest potted plant in the world.
The ancient cycad was collected in the early 1770s from the Eastern Cape in South Africa by Kew’s first plant hunter, Frances Masson.
It was one of 500 species gathered for the botanical gardens during Captain Cook’s second voyage around the globe.
For the last 160 years, the tree has been housed in Kew’s Palm House, where its nobbly trunk has grown outwards and upwards at an inch a year.
It now stretches to 14ft 5 inches and because it is growing at an angle, is propped up by stilts.
The repotting procedure was successful. Link -via Unique Daily
(imafe credit: Jenny Goodall)
