Botany
A sustainable future for women in science
On International Women's Day we talk to Dr Anne-Marie Tosolini who returned to University of Melbourne after a career break to study 56 million-year-old fossils
How plants tell time
Plants can’t go to a fridge for a midnight snack, but a new University of Melbourne-led study shows they sense time at dusk to conserve energy made from the sun
The stories of Australia’s botanical biodiversity
The University of Melbourne Herbarium has an estimated 150,000 specimens, each with their own story to tell and now the collection is available online.
All the forests in the world from a single layer of cells
University of Melbourne researchers have discovered how wood-making cells inside trees work, settling a century-old debate about how plants make bark and wood
The chemical that tells plants when it’s time to sleep
Ethylene, the hormone responsible for fruit ripening, also helps regulate plants' circadian rhythms, University of Melbourne research has found.
How sunflowers track the sun
An internal clock drives the daily dance of these plants, even though their movement was once put down to a mythological Greek love story.
A weed by any other name
Researchers explain what makes a plant a weed in one circumstance and acceptable in another, and how introduced species are part of the solution.