"I'll never forget when I first saw the small poplars flowering in my lab. What takes decades in nature we'd managed in a few weeks. I remember my first thought was 'This just can't be true!'."  Read more

Plants lack consciousness. They cannot "know", in our sense of the word, that it's time to bloom. A Swedish researcher has found the precise gene that controls plants' flowering, thus solving a mystery that has been baffling biologists ever since the time of Carl Linnaeus. So exactly what is it that makes flowers open?  Read more

Trees have always been immensely important to humans. They've given us fire, they've given us shelter. Maybe in our high-tech age it's been tempting to believe that their importance has waned. Far from it! Exciting new insights into what makes trees grow are opening a whole new future for forestry.  Read more

The elephant is the largest land animal, as we all learned in school. But who tops the size league if we include all land organisms, not only animals? Biologists are not entirely sure, but it could be a deciduous tree, the unassuming poplar.  Read more

Conifers are the oldest of all the plants that spread by seed. Pine and spruce have been around on Earth much longer than fruit like redcurrants and blackberries. These ancient inhabitants of the planet may well take on a whole new significance in the future. Forest genetics are today becoming a hotter subject than ever before.  Read more