Flowers are the mother of fruit. How does a flower become a fruit? What is a fruit?
All in What is
What is a flower?
One of the best parts of spring is the flowers. Flowers bring color and structure to our yards and joy to our hearts, but what is a flower? Like everything else, flowers have cultural and aesthetic significance, but I want to look at flowers under a botanical lens.
Spring from the car window
Spring is here! As early-blooming flowers pop out, it’s a great time of year to learn to recognize plants. If you are quarantined or locked down at home, you may still catch glimpses on dashes to the grocery store or strolls around the neighborhood. Join me to learn what some of those colorful blurs are.
What is a plant?
What is a plant? There are many deeply strange forms of life on earth that do not conform to our three kingdoms model of the world. What counts as a plant, and what doesn’t? This is the first of a new series of posts that will look under the hood of some everyday plant concepts. We’ll start at the very beginning, asking “what is a plant?” Send me any of your plant quandries and I’ll try to answer them. (Cover image of diatoms--are diatoms plants? Photo by Zeiss Microscopy CC license)