Years ago, a well-meaning woman admonished me for picking common milkweed because “the monarchs needed them.” I knew that monarch caterpillars relied on milkweed species as their…

Are there any flowers more recognizable than roses? Even botanophobes recognize their fragrant blooms. Throughout history, they have represented dynasties and revolutions, worldly powers and…

As a science teacher, I love strawberries not just for their flavor, but also for their DNA. I use strawberries to show high school students how to extract DNA from living tissue. A quirk of…

My mother is a master gardener. In the spring, her beds are an explosion of showy blossoms, and in August, her gardens overflow with vegetables. Although we share a lifelong love of plants,…

Soft drinks are the very model of industrially processed food. No one is surprised that they contain artificial colors, flavors, and sweeteners. But people might be surprised that root beer,…

When I was young, my grandfather’s driveway was overshadowed by a massive butternut tree (Juglans cinerea) that grew in his neighbor’s yard. Grandpa complained loudly about the…

Native butternut, Juglans cinerea, is steadily disappearing from the woods of North America due to butternut canker, a non-native fungus (Ophiognomonia clavigignenti-juglandacearum) that was…

When my daughter was 2 years old, she and I would walk through the winter woods and she learned the trees by their bark. In the spring, she learned the birds by their calls. Throughout the…

Ferns have been around for a mind-boggling 360 million years. That’s more than twice the time that dinosaurs reigned, and more than 1,800 times longer than modern humans have been…