Latest Botany News

Visitors flock to New York botanic garden for a whiff of a flower that smells like a rotting corpse

Jan. 24, 2025 20:08 PM EST

NEW YORK (AP) — One by one, visitors to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden pulled out their phones snap pictures of the rare blooming plant before leaning in to brave a whiff of its infamously putrid scent, which resembles that of rotting flesh. “It smells like feet, cheese and rotten...

A blooming plant that reeks of gym socks and rotting garbage has thousands lining up for a whiff

Jan. 23, 2025 10:14 AM EST

SYDNEY (AP) — The rare unfurling of an endangered plant that emits the smell of decaying flesh drew hundreds of devoted fans to a greenhouse in Sydney on Thursday where they joined three-hour lines to experience a momentous bloom -– and a fragrance evoking gym socks and rotting garbage. ...

Farming tech is on display at CES as companies showcase their green innovations and initiatives

Jan. 09, 2025 09:36 AM EST

LAS VEGAS (AP) — When Russell Maichel started growing almonds, walnuts and pistachios in the 1980s, he didn't own a cellphone. Now, a fully autonomous tractor drives through his expansive orchard, spraying pesticides and fertilizer to protect the trees that have for decades filled him with an...

Find out where your firewood comes from to prevent the spread of invasive pests

Dec. 24, 2024 10:25 AM EST

Crackling fires have long been a gathering place where idyllic chestnuts are roasted, stories shared and souls warmed, whether around a hearth or at a campsite. Some folks cut their own wood and let it season, but most buy their wood without much thought about where it came from. As...

A step-by-step guide to renovating a neglected garden

Dec. 17, 2024 09:09 AM EST

Some homeowners gaze out their windows and see lush and beautiful gardens. Others would like to see lush and beautiful gardens but instead are greeted by overgrown, dead or otherwise messy landscapes. Whether you’ve inherited a neglected garden from a previous homeowner or have...

'Tis the season for roasting chestnuts. But in the US, native ones are almost gone

Dec. 15, 2024 09:33 AM EST

It's been a very long time since vendors sold the American chestnut on city sidewalks. It's no longer the variety whose smell some people associate with Christmastime as it wafts from street carts. Because it's virtually extinct. But memories of the American chestnut's legacy keep...

Papuan women's mangrove forest in Indonesia is increasingly threatened by development and pollution

Nov. 21, 2024 06:37 AM EST

JAYAPURA, Indonesia (AP) — On the southeastern coast of the city of Jayapura, Petronela Merauje walked from house to house in her floating village inviting women to join her the next morning in the surrounding mangrove forests. Merauje and the women of her village, Enggros,...

In southern India's tea country, small but mighty efforts are brewing to bring back native forests

Nov. 19, 2024 00:08 AM EST

UDHAGAMANDALAM, India (AP) — Scattered groves of native trees, flowers and the occasional prehistoric burial ground are squeezed between hundreds of thousands of tea shrubs in southern India's Nilgiris region — a gateway to a time before colonization and the commercial growing of tea that...

Disease could kill most of the ‘ohi‘a forests on Hawaii's Big Island within 20 years

Nov. 13, 2024 16:20 PM EST

Ten years ago, a mysterious new disease was found sweeping through Hawaii’s native ‘ohi‘a forests, killing off the foundation of the islands’ ecology and one of the state’s most culturally important trees. Now, researchers are in a race against time. They say most of the...