Scientists have discovered a previously unknown environmental source of the element

Scientists from China and the USA report the use of CRISPR/Cas9 to develop a variety of rice producing 25-31% more grain than traditional breeding methods.

Nitrogen fixation seems to involve a painful tradeoff.

Wollemi pines have survived for hundreds of millions of years. Once covering Australia, they now survive in a few isolated spots – but they're coming back in a big way.

An invasive species of Asian plant that can cause blindness is turning up in Virginia, prompting warnings for people to be on the lookout for a 15-foot-tall herb topped with fluffy white flowers.

For farmers, protecting fields from pests and plagues is a constant battle fought on multiple fronts. Many insects have a taste for the same plants humans do, and pathogenic microbes infect leaves, shoots and roots. Then there are the weeds that compete with crops for soil and sun.

A Virginia teen could take up to two years to recover fully from severe burns he got from an encounter with a dangerous invasive plant this week. Alex Childress, 17, was doing landscaping work near Fredericksburg when he chopped down a large weed, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports. When doing so, the plant brushed against his face and arm. Unbeknownst to Alex, the plant was giant hogweed, a weed sometimes called the “plant from hell.”

Smooth or hairy, pungent or tasteless, deep-hued or bright: new versions of old fruits could be hitting the produce aisles as plant experts embrace cutting-edge technology, scientists say. While researchers have previously produced plants with specific traits through traditional breeding techniques, experts say new technologies such as the gene-editing tool Crispr-Cas9 could be used to bring about changes far more rapidly and efficiently.

A wood and glass case invented in the early 19th-century transformed the movement of plants around the world. In Melbourne, several thousand people greeted a primrose on its arrival from England.

Why do these plants do this? By Cynthia Wood.

Only when flowering is Pilostyles visible externally, the flowers erupting from the stems of its host like a weird botanical Alien.

The Bunya pine is a unique and majestic Australian tree that commands respect.

Parasitic gall wasps have some of the freshest cribs nature has to offer.

For thousands of years, people from Sierra Mixe, a mountainous region in southern Mexico, have been cultivating an unusual variety of giant corn. They grow the crop on soils that are poor in nitrogen—an essential nutrient—and they barely use any additional fertilizer. And yet, their corn towers over conventional varieties, reaching heights of more than 16 feet.

Gene-sequence data is changing the way that botanists think about their classification schemes. A recent name-change for a common houseplant resulted from the discovery that it belonged in an overlooked genus.

One of the world’s largest flowers, known as the “corpse flower”, will bloom at the Toronto Zoo – a first for the zoo and the city. The corpse flower, officially titled Amorphophallus titanum, has been recorded as having the world’s tallest bloom. It is also known for its tremendous pungent smell; Toronto Zoo officials have likened it to that of rotting meat.

In a few idyllic parts of Queensland grows the idiot fruit, a tall tree with intricate flowers and some of the largest seeds in Australia.

Scientists showed that plants are much less passive than they seem by revealing the secret workings of their threat communication systems.

While calling it an assassin's cabinet may be a bit exaggerated, the dramatically titled curio is a hollowed out book from the 16th century. In the pages' place are eleven drawers of varying sizes with meticulous labels, each spelling out which plant each drawer contained.

Strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, and... groundcherries? A little-known fruit about the size of a marble could become agriculture's next big berry crop.