What Do Suburban Lawns and the Vietnam War Have in Common?
Answer: The herbicide 2,4-D.
You may be familiar with this herbicide as an active ingredient in “Weed ‘n Feed®”, “Weed B Gon MAX®”, Turf Builder® With Weed Control”, etc..
During the Vietnam War, it was an active ingredient in Agent Orange.
On lawns it’s used [...]
Archive for April, 2009
Why Herbicides Kill Plants (But Not You)
Posted in Plant Hormones, tagged agriculture, botany, Gardening, Nature, plants, science on April 30, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Do Plants Have an Immune System?
Posted in Plant Signaling, Plant Stress, Secondary Compounds, tagged botany, Nature, plants, science on April 23, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
It Depends on How You Define “Immune System”
Plants get sick. That is, they can be infected by pathogens.
But after hundreds of millions of years of pathogen attacks, plants are still here. So, they must have ways to get well after being sick.
Plants can defend themselves against disease-causing organisms (pathogens) such as viruses, bacteria, [...]
How, When, and Where Did Flowers Originate?
Posted in Flowering, tagged botany, evolution, Nature, plants, science on April 5, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
The First Flower?
How did flowering plants (angiosperms) evolve from non-flowering seed plants (gymnosperms)? Or did they?
When did the first flower appear on this planet?
And where on Earth did it occur?
These are some of the most hotly debated questions among botanists today. Partly because some of the fossil data is at odds with some of [...]
