128 Fun Facts About Plants

What pigment gives most plants their green color?

Chlorophyll is the green pigment found in chloroplasts that absorbs light energy for photosynthesis. It reflects green wavelengths, giving plants their characteristic color.

What gas do plants absorb from the atmosphere during photosynthesis?

Plants absorb carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere through tiny pores called stomata. During photosynthesis, CO2 is combined with water using light energy to produce glucose and oxygen.

In which part of a plant cell does photosynthesis primarily occur?

Photosynthesis takes place in chloroplasts, which contain chlorophyll and the molecular machinery needed to convert light energy into chemical energy (glucose).

What is the main product plants create through photosynthesis?

Photosynthesis produces glucose (a simple sugar) as its primary product. Plants then use this glucose as an energy source or convert it into other molecules like starch and cellulose.

What are the tiny pores on the surface of leaves called that allow gas exchange?

Stomata are microscopic pores found mainly on the underside of leaves. They open and close to regulate gas exchange (CO2 in, O2 out) and water loss through transpiration.

What part of a flower produces pollen?

The anther is the pollen-producing part of the stamen (the male reproductive organ of a flower). Pollen grains contain the male gametes needed for fertilization.

What is the process by which water moves up through a plant from roots to leaves?

Transpiration is the process by which water evaporates from leaf surfaces, creating a pull that draws water upward through the xylem from the roots. This transpiration stream carries water and dissolved minerals throughout the plant.

What type of plant tissue transports water from roots to leaves?

Xylem is the vascular tissue responsible for transporting water and dissolved minerals upward from the roots. It consists of dead, hollow cells that form continuous tubes through the plant.

What is the female reproductive part of a flower called?

A pistil is made of stigma, style and ovary; the stamens around it make up the male androecium.

Which of these is NOT a part of a typical flower?

A node is the point on a stem where leaves attach; the four whorls of a typical flower are sepals, petals, stamens and pistils.

What is the tallest species of tree in the world?

Coast redwoods (Sequoia sempervirens) are the tallest trees; Hyperion, found in northern California in 2006, measured about 116 metres, taller than any giant sequoia or Douglas fir.

What is the largest tree by volume in the world?

The giant sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum) is the largest tree by volume. General Sherman, the largest known specimen in Sequoia National Park, has a volume of about 1,487 cubic meters.

What does a Venus flytrap primarily catch for nutrients?

Venus flytraps catch insects and the odd spider; the trap only snaps shut when a trigger hair is touched twice within about twenty seconds, which stops it wasting energy on raindrops and debris.

Which carnivorous plant uses a pitfall trap filled with digestive fluids?

Pitcher plants (families Sarraceniaceae and Nepenthaceae) use modified leaves shaped like pitchers to trap insects. Prey fall in and cannot escape due to slippery walls, then are digested by enzymes in the fluid.

What is the part of a seed that develops into the new plant?

The embryo is the tiny living plant inside a seed that will germinate and grow into a new plant. It contains the embryonic root (radicle), shoot (plumule), and one or two seed leaves (cotyledons).

What is the function of the endosperm in a seed?

In wheat and corn the endosperm makes up most of the grain, which is why it feeds people as well as embryos.

How many seed leaves does a grass seedling have?

Grasses are monocots and sprout one seed leaf (cotyledon), as do lilies, orchids and palms; beans and sunflowers, with two, are dicots.

What do we call trees that drop all their leaves each year, usually in autumn?

Deciduous trees such as oaks, maples and birches shed all their leaves in autumn to cut water loss in the cold or dry season; the word comes from Latin decidere, 'to fall off'.

What is the largest individual flower by diameter in the world?

Rafflesia arnoldii produces the largest individual flower, reaching up to 1 meter (3 feet) in diameter and weighing up to 11 kg. It is a parasitic plant found in Southeast Asian rainforests and emits a rotting flesh smell.

What type of plant reproduces via spores rather than seeds?

Ferns reproduce by spores, which form in sporangia clustered into sori, the brown dots on the underside of the fronds; roses, sunflowers and apple trees all set seed.

What do botanists call the transfer of grains from a flower's anther to its stigma?

Pollination is the transfer of pollen from the male anther to the female stigma; wind, insects, birds, bats or water carry the grains, setting up fertilisation and seeds.

Which insect do beekeepers truck from field to field in hives to pollinate food crops?

Crop pollination is a major share of the western honey bee's commercial value; wild pollinators have dwindled as fields have grown.

What is a plant that completes its entire life cycle in one growing season called?

Wheat, corn and most garden vegetables are annuals; biennials take two seasons and perennials keep going.

What is the most widely grown cereal crop in the world by production?

Corn (maize) is the most-produced cereal: world output reached about 1.16 billion tonnes in 2020, ahead of wheat and rice at roughly 760 million tonnes each.

What ecological role do plants play as the base of most food chains?

Nearly all energy in food webs starts with producers converting sunlight into chemical energy through photosynthesis.

What is the symbiotic relationship between fungi and plant roots called?

Mycorrhiza is a mutualistic association between fungi and plant roots. The fungus helps the plant absorb water and minerals (especially phosphorus), while the plant provides the fungus with sugars from photosynthesis.

Which growing method, used for greenhouse lettuce and tomatoes, raises plants with their roots in nutrient-rich water instead of soil?

Hydroponics literally means 'water working'; the roots may be held in an inert medium such as perlite or clay pebbles.

Which part of the rice plant do we eat?

The seed is milled to strip its outer layers; how much is removed decides whether you get brown rice or white.

What is the process of growing a new plant from a cutting of an existing plant?

Vegetative propagation (also called cloning) is a form of asexual reproduction where a new plant grows from a fragment of the parent plant, such as a stem cutting, leaf, or root division.

Which biome has the greatest diversity of plant species?

Rainforests hold about half of the world's plant and animal species and two-thirds of all flowering plants.

Which common herb is a member of the mint family and is widely used in Italian cuisine?

Basil (Ocimum basilicum) belongs to the mint family, Lamiaceae, sharing its square stems and opposite leaves; it is the defining ingredient of pesto alla genovese.

Which part of the saffron crocus is picked to make the world's priciest spice?

Saffron is the dried stigmas of Crocus sativus: each flower yields just three red stigmas, and it takes about 75,000 flowers to produce one pound of the spice.

Which of these plants, whose Latin name honours a Greek Fate, is highly toxic and was historically used as a poison?

Deadly nightshade's tropane alkaloids, atropine and scopolamine among them, cause delirium and hallucinations, yet the same compounds are used as pharmaceuticals.

What toxic compound is found in high concentrations in rhubarb leaves?

Rhubarb leaves contain high concentrations of oxalic acid, which can cause kidney failure and death if consumed in large quantities. The stalks, however, are safe to eat and commonly used in pies and desserts.

What structural adaptation allows cacti to survive in arid environments?

Cacti survive drought with water-storing fleshy stems: the succulent stem holds water behind a waxy skin, while the spines are modified leaves that shade it and cut water loss.

What are plants called that grow on other plants without being parasitic?

Epiphytes are plants that grow on other plants for physical support without drawing nutrients from them. Common epiphytes include orchids, bromeliads, and many ferns found in tropical rainforests.

What is the term for a plant that can tolerate high salt concentrations?

Halophytes are plants adapted to saline environments such as salt marshes, coastal dunes, and salt flats. They have special mechanisms to excrete or compartmentalize salt. Mangroves are well-known halophytes.

What is the waxy, waterproof coating on the outer surface of plant leaves called?

The cuticle is a waxy, hydrophobic layer coating the outer surface of leaves and stems. It is made primarily of cutin and waxes and serves to reduce water loss through evaporation.

Which plant hormone is primarily responsible for promoting cell elongation and stem growth?

Auxin is why seedlings bend toward a window: it builds up on the shaded side and makes those cells elongate faster.

What root adaptation lets red mangroves breathe in waterlogged coastal mud?

Red mangroves (Rhizophora) stand on arching stilt or prop roots that lift the trunk above the tide and take in air through lenticels; black mangroves instead send up straw-like pneumatophores.

What is the scientific study of plants called?

Botany is the scientific study of plants, including their structure, physiology, genetics, ecology, distribution, and classification. It is one of the oldest branches of biology.

What is the term for the arrangement of leaves on a stem?

Phyllotaxis refers to the pattern or arrangement of leaves on a plant stem. Common patterns include alternate, opposite, whorled, and spiral arrangements, which optimize light capture.

Which 'living fossil' tree has fan-shaped leaves whose veins never join into a network?

Fossils recognisably related to modern ginkgo go back to the early Permian, roughly 290 million years, and it is the sole survivor of its whole division.

Which tree species includes Methuselah, the oldest known non-clonal living tree on Earth?

Methuselah is 4,858 years old by ring count and grows in California's White Mountains; its exact location is kept secret.

What class of plant pigment gives autumn leaves their orange and yellow colors?

Carotenoids are in the leaf all year but masked by chlorophyll; the reds and purples come from anthocyanins instead.

What is the largest seed in the plant kingdom?

The coco de mer (Lodoicea maldivica) bears the largest seed in the plant kingdom, weighing up to about 18 kg; the palm grows wild only on Praslin and Curieuse in the Seychelles.

What fast-growing plant can grow up to 91 cm (36 inches) in a single day?

Bamboo is the fastest-growing plant in the world. Certain species, particularly Moso bamboo (Phyllostachys edulis), can grow up to 91 cm (36 inches) per day under optimal conditions.

What is the term for plants that flower and fruit only once in their lifetime before dying?

Monocarpic plants flower and fruit once and then die: the century plant (Agave americana) is the classic example, along with bamboos that wait decades to flower en masse.

Which plant hormone ripens fruit, and explains why a ripe banana hurries its neighbours?

Ethylene, a gaseous hormone, triggers ripening, leaf drop and flower wilting; a ripe banana leaks enough ethylene to hurry along any unripe fruit beside it.

What nitrogen-fixing bacteria form nodules on the roots of legumes?

Rhizobium bacteria form a symbiotic relationship with legumes (beans, peas, clover), living in root nodules where they convert atmospheric nitrogen into ammonia that the plant can use. This is why legumes are used as cover crops to enrich soil.

The titan arum, or corpse flower, is endemic to rainforests on which Indonesian island?

Sumatra's titan arum heats its spadix to 37 C to spread its stench; Odoardo Beccari first described it in 1878.

Where was the titan arum first brought to flower in cultivation, in 1889?

Kew Gardens coaxed the first cultivated bloom in 1889; a titan arum's flower lasts only 24 to 36 hours.

How much did the record titan arum tuber grown at Edinburgh in 2010 weigh?

The Edinburgh corm weighed 153.9 kg in 2010, the heaviest recorded; it had grown over seven years from a tuber the size of an orange.

How many leaves does a Welwitschia plant produce in its entire life?

Welwitschia mirabilis produces just two leaves in its life; they keep growing from a woody crown, splitting and fraying over centuries in the Namib desert.

Welwitschia is named after an Austrian botanist who documented it in 1859 in which country?

Friedrich Welwitsch came across the plant in 1859 in the Namib desert of southern Angola; it tolerates extreme heat and almost no rain.

The Wollemi pine was discovered in 1994 in a national park how far from Sydney?

David Noble found the trees in September 1994 in Wollemi National Park, about 150 km north-west of Sydney; the species was named Wollemia nobilis after him.

Pando, the giant quaking aspen clone, grows in which US state?

Pando grows in Utah's Fishlake National Forest, where thousands of genetically identical quaking aspen stems share one root system spanning 106 acres.

Roughly how many stems does the Pando clone have?

Pando has roughly 47,000 stems, which look like individual trees but are genetically identical parts of a single organism spread over 106 acres.

Who discovered Hyperion, the world's tallest known tree, in August 2006?

Naturalists Chris Atkins and Michael Taylor found Hyperion on 25 August 2006; Stephen Sillett's team then climbed it and confirmed the height by dropping a tape.

In which California park does Hyperion, the tallest known tree, grow?

Hyperion stands in Redwood National Park in northern California; the park kept its location secret and in 2022 closed the surrounding area to visitors to protect the tree.

The General Sherman tree, the world's largest by volume, is named for a general from which war?

American Civil War general William Tecumseh Sherman is the namesake; the tree stands in the Giant Forest of Sequoia National Park.

Which two countries produced the most sunflower seeds in 2024?

Russia and Ukraine are the world's two biggest sunflower seed growers, together supplying more than half of a 2024 world crop of roughly 52 million tonnes.

Sunflower florets are oriented at roughly what angle to each other?

The golden angle of about 137.5 degrees spaces each new floret so it never lines up with an earlier one, producing spirals whose counts are successive Fibonacci numbers.

Which tulip variety was the most prized during tulip mania, quoted at 10,000 guilders?

Semper Augustus, a red-and-white flamed tulip, was the most prized bulb of the mania, quoted at 10,000 guilders, the price of a grand Amsterdam house; the bubble collapsed in February 1637.

Charles Mackay's 1841 book on tulip mania was titled Extraordinary ... what?

Mackay's Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (1841) popularised the tulip mania story, claiming 12 acres of land were once offered for a single bulb.

Genomic analysis suggests the baobab genus Adansonia originated where?

A 2024 genome study in Nature traced Adansonia to Madagascar about 21 million years ago, with later dispersals to mainland Africa and Australia; most baobab species are endemic to Madagascar.

How many species of baobab are there?

Botanists recognise eight baobab species: six endemic to Madagascar, one across mainland Africa and one in north-western Australia.

Which colonial governor wrote the first description of the Venus flytrap in 1759?

Arthur Dobbs sent the first known description of the 'Fly Trap Sensitive' in a 1759 letter to the English botanist Peter Collinson; John Ellis later gave it the name Dionaea muscipula.

In 2005 the Venus flytrap was designated the state carnivorous plant of which state?

North Carolina made the Venus flytrap its state carnivorous plant in 2005; nearly all wild populations grow on the low coastal plain within about 100 km of Wilmington.

The touch-sensitive Mimosa pudica, whose leaves fold when brushed, belongs to which plant family?

Fabaceae (pea/legume) is the family: the leaves fold inward when touched and reopen a few minutes later.

Kudzu was introduced to the US at which 1876 event?

Kudzu was shown in the Japanese pavilion at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, where Americans admired it as an ornamental vine decades before it was pushed for erosion control.

Roughly how many kudzu seedlings did the Soil Conservation Service grow to fight erosion?

The Soil Conservation Service raised about seventy million kudzu seedlings in the 1930s and paid farmers up to $8 an acre to plant the vine against Dust Bowl era erosion.

Which clear compound in poison ivy sap causes its itchy rash?

Urushiol, an oily resin in poison ivy sap, binds to skin proteins and triggers allergic contact dermatitis; the same compound occurs in poison oak, poison sumac and mango skin.

The name manchineel comes from the Spanish for what?

A present-day Spanish name is manzanilla de la muerte, 'little apple of death'.

Which genus of rootless duckweed contains the smallest flowering plants on Earth?

Wolffia, known as watermeal, contains the smallest flowering plants: its rootless fronds are about a millimetre across and look like specks of cornmeal floating on water.

Which Dutch astronomer pioneered tree-ring crossdating to reconstruct past climate?

Jacobus Kapteyn, better known for mapping the Milky Way, crossdated oak rings from the Netherlands and Germany to chart past rainfall; A. E. Douglass later founded the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research at Arizona.

Carl Linnaeus published the first edition of Systema Naturae while living in which country?

Linnaeus lived in the Netherlands from 1735 to 1738, taking his medical degree at Harderwijk; the first edition of Systema Naturae was printed in Leiden in 1735.

Linnaeus was known by what name after his ennoblement in 1761?

After his ennoblement in 1761 (backdated to 1757) Linnaeus took the name Carl von Linné; he had begun lecturing in botany at Uppsala in 1730.

Between which years did Gregor Mendel conduct his pea plant experiments?

Mendel grew and crossed some 28,000 pea plants in his monastery garden between 1856 and 1863, presenting the results to a local natural history society in 1865.

How many pea-plant traits did Mendel track in his experiments?

Mendel tracked seven traits: plant height, pod shape and colour, seed shape and colour, and flower position and colour; crossing yellow- and green-seeded true-breeding peas always gave yellow seeds first.

Mendel was abbot of an abbey in which city?

Mendel was an Augustinian friar, and from 1868 abbot, of St Thomas's Abbey in Brno, the capital of Moravia, then part of the Austrian Empire.

Kew's Palm House was the first large-scale structural use of what material?

The Palm House, built by Decimus Burton and Richard Turner between 1844 and 1848, was the first large-scale structural use of wrought iron, using ribs adapted from shipbuilding.

Which architect built Kew's Great Pagoda in 1761?

Sir William Chambers designed the ten-storey Great Pagoda for Princess Augusta; it was completed in 1762 and restored with its 80 dragons in 2018.

Which Sussex botanic garden is managed by Kew?

Wakehurst, owned by the National Trust and run by Kew since 1965, houses Kew's Millennium Seed Bank, which opened in 2000.

In which year did Kew botanists describe the giant water lily Victoria boliviana?

Kew botanists described Victoria boliviana in 2022 after comparing it with V. amazonica and V. cruziana; its pads reach over three metres across, the largest of any water lily.

On which island is the Svalbard Global Seed Vault located?

Spitsbergen was chosen for its permafrost; Norway paid the entire construction cost of about 45 million kroner.

On what date did the Svalbard Seed Vault officially open?

The vault was officially opened on 26 February 2008 by Norway's prime minister Jens Stoltenberg, a month after the first seed boxes arrived in January 2008.

Where did the Nordic Gene Bank store backup seeds from 1984, before the vault existed?

From 1984 the Nordic Gene Bank kept duplicate seeds frozen in an abandoned coal mine outside Longyearbyen, an arrangement the purpose-built vault replaced in 2008.

Who discovered photosynthesis in 1779 by showing plants need light?

Jan Ingenhousz, a Dutch physician, showed in 1779 that plants release oxygen only in light, building on Priestley's finding that they restore 'injured' air.

Which enzyme captures carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in the Calvin cycle?

RuBisCO (ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase) fixes CO2 onto a five-carbon sugar in the Calvin cycle and is thought to be the most abundant protein on Earth.

Which is the only cactus species found naturally outside the Americas?

Rhipsalis baccifera, the mistletoe cactus, is the only cactus with a natural range outside the Americas: it also grows in tropical Africa, Madagascar and Sri Lanka, probably carried by birds.

Which is the tallest free-standing cactus, reaching 63 feet?

Pachycereus pringlei, the Mexican giant cardon of Baja California, is the tallest free-standing cactus: a record specimen measured 19.2 metres (63 feet).

Roughly how much water can a fully grown saguaro absorb during one rainstorm?

The cactus family has about 127 genera and some 1,750 species.

Orchidaceae is one of the two largest families of which plant group?

Orchidaceae, with roughly 28,000 species, rivals Asteraceae as the largest family of angiosperms (flowering plants); many orchids are epiphytes and diversity peaks in the tropics.

A sacred lotus seed germinated in 1994 was estimated to be how old?

The seed, radiocarbon-dated to about 1,300 years old, came from a dry lakebed at Xipaozi in Liaoning, northeastern China, and was sprouted by Jane Shen-Miller's team at UCLA.

Roughly what share of world coffee production is Coffea arabica?

Coffea arabica makes up roughly 55% of world coffee output, with Coffea canephora, known as Robusta, supplying about 45%; arabica's milder flavour comes with lower caffeine and weaker disease resistance.

Wheat was first cultivated in the Fertile Crescent around what date?

Wild emmer and einkorn were first cultivated in the Fertile Crescent around 9600 BC, in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic; common wheat, Triticum aestivum, arose later from hybridisation with a goat grass.

Genetic studies trace the cultivated potato to a single origin in which region?

Southern Peru and north-west Bolivia is the single origin; domestication happened about 7,000 to 10,000 years ago, and Europe only met the potato after 1500.

Botanically, what kind of fruit is a banana?

A banana is a berry: a fleshy fruit from a single ovary with the seeds (tiny in cultivated types) inside; it grows on large treelike herbs of the genus Musa.

Which two wild species gave rise to almost all modern seedless bananas?

Almost all edible bananas are hybrids or selections of Musa acuminata (A genome) and Musa balbisiana (B genome); the fruit is parthenocarpic, developing without fertilisation.

Botanically, the coconut is what type of fruit?

The coconut is a drupe: a fibrous husk (mesocarp) surrounds the hard stone (endocarp) that holds the seed, so it is not a true nut; Cocos nucifera is the only living species of its genus.

Which three countries produced the most coconuts in 2024?

Indonesia, India and the Philippines are the three biggest coconut growers, together supplying close to three-quarters of a 2024 world crop of more than 60 million tonnes.

Bamboos belong to which group of plants?

Bamboos are members of the grass family, Poaceae, in their own subfamily Bambusoideae; like other grasses they have hollow, jointed stems called culms and flower only rarely.

Which is the largest bamboo species, with culms up to 151 feet long?

Dendrocalamus sinicus, from Yunnan and Laos, is the largest bamboo: its culms reach about 46 metres (151 feet) long and 36 cm across, weighing up to 450 kg.

Which three species of Cannabis are sometimes recognised?

Cannabis sativa, Cannabis indica and Cannabis ruderalis are the three species sometimes recognised, though many botanists treat them as one variable species; hemp is the term for varieties grown for non-drug use.

Which three countries were the largest tea producers in 2023?

All tea types come from Camellia sinensis, differing mainly in oxidation; China, India and Kenya led world production in 2023.

Which is the most oxidised type of tea?

Black tea is fully oxidised and white tea the least, with green and oolong in between, all from the same leaves.

Who devised the practical hand-pollination method for vanilla in 1841?

Edmond Albius, an enslaved 12-year-old on Réunion, worked out in 1841 how to hand-pollinate vanilla with a thin stick and his thumb, making cultivation possible outside Mexico.

Vanilla is a spice derived from the seed pods of what kind of plant?

Vanilla comes from the cured seed pods of orchids of the genus Vanilla, chiefly Vanilla planifolia, the flat-leaved species native to Mexico and Central America.

What does the cacao genus name Theobroma mean in Greek?

Linnaeus named the genus Theobroma, Greek for 'food of the gods', in 1753; its stimulant alkaloid theobromine takes its name from the genus and is similar to caffeine.

Which country was the largest producer of cocoa beans in 2022?

Côte d'Ivoire grew roughly 2.2 million tonnes of cocoa beans in 2022, about 40% of the world crop and nearly double second-placed Ghana; the tree itself is native to the American tropics.

Cacao flowers grow directly on the trunk and older branches, a trait called what?

Cauliflory is flowering directly from the trunk and older branches; cacao's clustered flowers, pollinated by tiny midges, become the pods that hold cocoa beans.

Roughly how many species of oak are there in the genus Quercus?

About 500 species, deciduous and evergreen, spread across the Northern Hemisphere; oaks belong to the beech family and bear acorns in cups.

Old Tjikko, a roughly 9,568-year-old Norway spruce, grows in which country?

It is a clonal tree that has regenerated new trunks over millennia.

Jōmon Sugi is a giant Cryptomeria on which UNESCO-listed Japanese island?

Jōmon Sugi grows high on Yakushima, whose ancient cedar forests were listed by UNESCO in 1993; its age is estimated at between 2,170 and 7,200 years.

The Angel Oak, a giant southern live oak, stands on Johns Island near which city?

The Angel Oak stands on Johns Island, about 20 km south-west of Charleston, South Carolina; it is estimated to be 400 to 500 years old and its longest limb stretches over 50 metres.

Rafflesia is a holoparasite of vines in which genus?

Rafflesia lives entirely inside Tetrastigma vines of the grape family, spreading a haustorium through the host's tissue, and has no leaves, stems or roots of its own.

Which naturalist found the giant Rafflesia flower with Raffles at Bengkulu in 1818?

Joseph Arnold, the expedition's naturalist, recorded the flower a Malay servant found near Bengkulu in May 1818; the genus honours expedition leader Stamford Raffles and the species, R. arnoldii, honours Arnold.

Why are Nepenthes pitcher plants called 'monkey cups'?

Nepenthes are called 'monkey cups' because monkeys were thought to drink rainwater from the pitchers; the genus is most diverse on Borneo, Sumatra and the Philippines.

Charles Darwin's experiments on which sundew species first confirmed carnivory in plants?

Darwin fed Drosera rotundifolia, the round-leaved sundew, meat and egg white and showed in Insectivorous Plants (1875) that its stalked glands digest and absorb animal matter, confirming plant carnivory.

Most Eucalyptus species are native to which continent?

Every Australian state and territory has its own species; the leaves carry oil glands.

Which Arabian Sea archipelago is home to the red-sapped dragon blood tree?

Socotra, a Yemeni archipelago between the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Aden, is the only home of Dracaena cinnabari, whose red resin, 'dragon's blood', was traded for centuries as dye and medicine.

How do Lithops, succulents of southern Africa, avoid being eaten by grazers?

Camouflaging as pebbles is in the name: Lithops combines the Greek for 'stone' and 'face', and each plant is little more than a pair of fused, bulbous leaves.

A seagrass clone estimated at 100,000 years old was found in 2006 off which Spanish island?

The Posidonia oceanica colony lies south of Ibiza, stretching some 8 km toward Formentera, and may be one of the largest and oldest clonal organisms on Earth.

The Wardian case, a sealed glass box for shipping plants in the 1800s, led directly to what?

Nathaniel Bagshaw Ward's sealed case, publicised in the 1830s, was the direct forerunner of the terrarium; it let foreign plants survive long sea voyages and also inspired the glass aquarium.

The name of Taraxacum officinale comes from a French phrase for which animal's tooth?

Taraxacum officinale is the dandelion: 'dent de lion', a lion's tooth, describes the coarsely toothed leaves; the folk name 'piss-a-bed' refers to the plant's diuretic effect.

Which chemical do stinging nettle hairs inject like tiny hypodermic needles?

Histamine, the same chemical behind hay fever, is injected when the hollow trichomes snap off at the tip; the rash is called 'contact urticaria'.

The 'Russian thistle' tumbleweed is said to have reached the US around 1870 in shipments of what seed?

Russian thistle (Salsola tragus) reached South Dakota in the early 1870s as a contaminant in flax seed imported from Russia; in 1989 drifts of tumbleweeds buried houses in Mobridge, South Dakota.