We received an intriguing surprise the other night while prepping dinner. We cut open an unassuming bell pepper (Capsicum annuum) only to find a small, yet perfectly formed pepper inside! It seemed to be attached to the placenta along with the seeds. This was the first time we had ever encountered this, but a quick internet search revealed it isn’t necessarily a rare phenomenon. What was going on with this fruit that caused it to form another fruit within? The quick answer is parthenocarpy or the formation of fruit without fertilization. Indeed, when we cut into this smaller pepper, there wer ..read more

The closely related Triantha racemosa. Photo by Patrick Alexander licensed under Public Domain. (I was unable to find any creative commons photos of Triantha occidentalis. It is a rare but special day when we can add a new plant to the relatively small list of carnivorous plants. It is even more exciting when that plant has been “hiding” in plain sight all this time. Meet the western false asphodel (Triantha occidentalis), a lovely monocot native to nutrient-poor wetlands in western North America. Triantha occidentalis may seem like an odd carnivorous plant. At first glance, it doesn’t have m ..read more

A pistillate cyathium of a Telephus spurge. Endemism fascinates me. Why some organisms occur in certain restrict areas geographically and nowhere else is such a fun topic to ponder. On a recent trip to the Florida Panhandle, I was lucky enough to encounter a wonderful little plant endemic to pine flatwoods located at the very tip of the Apalachicola region. It is a type of spurge known as Telephus spurge (Euphorbia telephioides) whose natural history is captivating to say the least. The Telephus spurge is a denizen of dry, sandy soils. Its fleshy leaves and deep, tuberous taproot not only all ..read more

Discussions about pitcher plants usually revolve around the fact that they trap and eat insects and other animals. However, there are a handful of organisms out there that turn the table on pitcher plants, reminding us that these botanical carnivores can become food themselves. Spend any amount of time surveying pitcher plant populations in southeastern North America and you are likely to encounter at least one such species of pitcher plant eater. There are three species of pitcher plant moths in the genus Exyra and all of them would not exist if it were not for pitcher plants in the genus Sa ..read more

When someone asks you if you would like to see a wild fever tree, you have to say yes. As a denizen of cold climates defined by months of freezing temperatures, I will never miss an opportunity to encounter any species in its native habitat that cannot survive frosts. This was the scenario I found myself in last week as friend and habitat restoration specialist for the Atlanta Botanical Garden, Jeff Talbert, was showing us around a wonderful chunk of Florida scrubland he has been managing over the last few years. He drove our small group over to an area that, up until a year or two ago, was c ..read more

Bearcorn (Conopholis americana) is one of those plants that really challenges mainstream assumptions of what a plant should look like. It produces no leaves, no chlorophyll, and all you ever see of it are its strange reproductive structures. One can easily be forgiven for thinking they had encountered some type of fungus. Bearcorn is an obligate parasite on oak trees. It simply can’t exist without access to oak roots. From what I have been able to gather, the preferred hosts of bearcorn are the red oaks (section Lobatae). That is not to say the exceptions have not been documented. At least on ..read more

The flora of the southern Appalachian Mountains will never cease to amaze me. Every time I visit this region of the world, I am blown away by the sheer number of plant species that grow on and around these ancient peaks. On a recent trip to western North Carolina, I stumbled across a small group of plants that somehow looked both familiar and strange at the same time. It turns out that I had crossed paths with a species that, up to that point, I thought was just a rumor. Growing up, lily-of-the-valley was a very common sight. It seemed that everyone I knew was growing a dense patch of these w ..read more

The first time I encountered a white trillium (Trillium grandiflorum) with green stripes on its flowers, I thought I had found a new variant. I excitedly took a bunch of pictures and, upon returning home, shared them among friends. It didn’t take long for someone far more informed than me to point out that this was not a new variant of this beloved plant. What I had found was signs of an infection. The green stripes on the petals are the result of a very specific bacterial infection. The bacteria responsible belongs to a group of bacterial parasites collectively referred to as phytoplasmas. P ..read more

Photo by Adam Baker licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0 The mass blooming of bluebonnets (Lupinus texensis) is truly one of southern North America’s most stunning natural spectacles. Celebrated across its native range, the bluebonnet has greatly benefited from supplemental planting by humans. Indeed, in states like Texas, hundreds of miles of roadsides are seeded with bluebonnets every year and the end result can be spectacular. The popularity of mass seeding of this wonderful species has led some to ask how the practice may be affecting the genetic diversity of the species throughout its range. Befo ..read more

Photo by Andrew Ward licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0 I am a sucker for smoketrees (Cotinus spp.). These members of the cashew family (Anacardiaceae) are a common sight around my town and really put on a dazzling show from late spring through fall. When I finally got around to putting a name to these trees, I was a little bit bummed to realize that all of the specimens in town are representatives of the Eurasian species, Cotinus coggygria, but it didn’t take me long to find out that North America has it’s own fascinating representative of the genus. The American smoketree (Cotinus obovatus) is not ..read more