Florapedia: Seagrasses

One of the best things fighting climate change are not forests but the meadows of seagrasses. Soaking up carbon they also provide homes and food for countless other plants, animals, and algae the world over. Today we’re going to be looking at this group of plants and their role in the ocean’s environment. Taxonomy and

Florapedia: Cannabis

Weed, ganja, Mary Jane, marijuana, skunk, pot – no matter what you call it we are talking about the same plant Cannabis sativa. For thousands of years humans have been cultivating cannabis as a drug and also building material. Hemp has been for millennia used to make rope, clothing, and even food. This post is

Florapedia: Milkweed

The monarch butterfly is one of the most iconic butterflies in North America but they would not survive without a genus of plants commonly called milkweed. These toxic and vital flowers are important parts of their environment, and without them we would not have the monarch butterfly. Taxonomy and Evolution Milkweed belong to the genus

Florapedia: Bananas and Plantain

One of the most popular fruits on the planet, as Daniel Stone said writing for National Geographic ‘If fruits were pop stars, the banana would be Beyonce.’ Spreading from the tropics their popularity outweighs local fruits across the world – 5 billion bananas are eaten in the UK alone annually. Today we’re looking at this

Florapedia: Dawn Redwood

In 1939 Shigeru Miki, a Japanese palaeontologist, discovered a fossilised tree leaf in occupied China and noting its similarity to the mighty redwoods in 1941 he named this extinct tree Metasequoia. However, the same year a Chinese botanist called Toh Gan discovered a tree that had lost most of its leaves that the locals called

Florapedia: Pumpkins (and zucchini/courgette)

Welcome back to 2023’s Month of Horror and with Halloween just around the corner many of us will be thinking about making a jack-o-lantern. Of course, we make jack-o-lanterns out of pumpkins, specifically Cucurbita pepo which is actually an incredibly diverse species. Not only are pumpkins a member of this species but also zucchini (or

Florapedia: Macadamia

Macadamia nuts are noted for having health benefits if taken as part of a balanced diet, and their popularity as a source of food has skyrocketed over the last century. Humans have been eating macadamia nuts for centuries, but the four macademia species are at risk of extinction, if one species only having 100 wild

Florapedia: Joshua Tree

The name of a U2 album and a national park in the southwest United States today we’re looking at the Joshua tree. Originally called humwichawa by the Cahuilla and izote de desierto (Desert dagger) by the Spanish the Joshua tree got its name from Mormon settlers as they colonised the southwest. A keystone species in

Florapedia: Spinifex

Across mainland Australia’s deserts and grasslands there is a genus of spiny grass that serves as the backbone of the ecosystem. Commonly called spinifex, tjanpi, and buru depending on who you ask this grass belongs to the genus Triodia – throughout this blog I will be switching between spinifex and Triodia. Taxonomy and Evolution As

Florapedia: Giant Kelp

Although today’s post is classed under ‘Florapedia’ the subject of this post is not actually a plant. The giant kelp is actually a species of brown algae, and while its place in the tree of life is disputed, what we can say is that they are not plants. However, they are very similar to plants