Plants tend to hoard DNA, not throwing anything out. The extra genes they hold inside can mutate to produce new physical traits. Holding onto the extra genes increases the tempo of evolution for the ...

Gymnosperm means “naked seed” and comes from the same Greek root as gymnastics, which means to exercise naked. This group of plants is so named because the seeds are not enclosed inside an ovary, ...

Determining the major drivers of species diversification and phenotypic innovation across the Tree of Life is one of the grand challeges in evolutionary biology. Facilitated by the Germplasm Bank of ...

Gymnosperms (Gymnospermae) are a group of seed-bearing plants with ovules borne on the edge or blade of an open sporophyll, the sporophylls usually arranged in cone-like structures. The other major ...

Insect pollination is a decisive process for the survival and evolution of angiosperm (flowering) plants and, to a lesser extent, gymnosperms (without visible flower or fruit). There is a growing ...

ARGUABLY the world’s weirdest plant, Welwitschia mirabilis is a tangled mass of shredded, fraying leaves in the Namib desert. For a thousand years, perhaps more, it grows just two long leaves, which ...

The Sago palm, Cycas revoluta, of course, is not a palm at all, but a gymnosperm, and thus more closely related to pine trees than palms. The botanist in me wants to remind you that gymnosperms are an ...

India's first Gymnosperm garden, established by the Uttarakhand forest department, showcases 27 crucial Gymnosperm plant species including endangered varieties like Ginkgo and Thuner. The garden, ...