With corpse flowers, carnivorous penis plants and otherworldly "fairy lanterns," Earth is filled with a dizzying variety of plants, from the beautiful to the bizarre. At Live Science, we celebrate this plant diversity by bringing you fantastic flora facts and the latest botany-based research. Curious about what plants you can eat if you're stranded in the wild? Or how plants "scream" in the face of stress? Our expert writers and editors answer these questions and more in the latest plant news, features and articles.
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'Woolly devil' flowers in Texas desert are the 1st new plant genus discovered in a US national park in almost 50 years
A newly discovered plant found by a national park volunteer in the Texas desert is a small, fuzzy flower that pokes up between rocks. With its limited range, this species could be threatened by climate change.
Chinese scientists use laser drones to count the country's trees — all 142.6 billion of them
Researchers have counted the number of trees in China and mapped their distribution across the country using a laser-based technique called lidar.
'Gossiping neighbors': Plants didn't evolve to be kind to each other, study finds
Rather than helping each other out when they're attacked, plants may have to eavesdrop on each other to know when to launch their own defenses.
Scientists discover pristine ancient forest frozen in time in Rocky Mountains
A melting ice patch in the Rocky Mountains uncovered an ancient forest, and these trees have stories to tell about dynamic landscapes and climate change.
'Rising temperatures melted corpses out of the Antarctic permafrost': The rise of one of Earth's most iconic trees in an uncertain world
As the Atlantic grew wider, the ancestral population of all of today's oaks may have been straddling the continents of the Northern Hemisphere. If so, the ancestor of the oaks we know today was a widespread population that was cleaved in half as North America inched westward.
'Alien plant' fossil discovered near Utah ghost town doesn't belong to any known plant families, living or extinct
Fossilized plant remains discovered near a Utah ghost town have stumped scientists, who are unable to link them to any modern or extinct plants.
Squirting cucumbers thicken and stiffen to eject seeds with 'remarkable speed and precision,' study finds
Squirting cucumbers shoot their seeds up to 33 feet (10 m) away from the mother plant to avoid overcrowding and competition, but exactly how they do it has long remained a mystery.
Where did the 1st seeds come from?
From delicate dandelions to mighty oak trees, millions of plants use seeds to reproduce. But where did the first seeds come from?
