Plants
The slow, silent organisms that outlive and outsmart almost everything else.
10 articles
PLANTSPrometheus fell before anyone knew its age
A scruffy pine in Nevada was cut up in 1964, and only afterwards did anyone count what was inside it.
PLANTSThis tree bleeds red and hides its own age
On one island in the Indian Ocean grows a tree shaped like an upside-down umbrella, and cutting it makes it run red.
PLANTSThe bee orchid gave up waiting for bees
It spent millions of years learning to fool a male bee, and now, in Britain, it does the job itself.
PLANTSThis water lily locks a beetle in for the night
A flower in the Amazon runs a one plant hotel, and its guest does not get to leave until morning.
PLANTSBorneo's giant pitcher plant is a toilet
Everyone says this plant eats rats, but hidden cameras on Mount Kinabalu caught something much stranger happening at the rim.
PLANTSThe corpse flower heats itself like a human body
A plant taller than your dad turns on its own heater so its stink of rotting meat can travel further.
PLANTSThis plant waits a lifetime to bloom once
High in the Andes grows a giant that does almost nothing for decades, then spends everything in a single season.
PLANTSThis desert plant grows only two leaves, ever
In the Namib sand sits a plant that never drops a leaf, and nobody can agree on how long it has been sitting there.
PLANTSThe biggest single flower on Earth has no roots
It has no leaves, no roots and no way to feed itself, yet it grows a bloom the size of a car tyre.
PLANTSThis flower locks beetles in for days
A leafless African plant pretends to be rotting meat, then shuts the door behind its visitors.