When it comes to a battle of persistence between a weed and a human, the weed will win most of the time. That is one of the things that makes a weed a weed.
Articles on Australian plants
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Farmers and nursery managers often use fungicide is to tackle plant rust disease, but we need to find ways to decrease our reliance on fungicide treatment.
If you are keen to see your cabbage tree palm flower, be aware it may take 150-170 years. If you can wait that long, it usually happens between August and October.
It makes great sense many plants flower when the insects and birds so vital to their reproductive success are also getting busier (and getting busy).
Next time you’re outside, say a silent thanks for the many unsung insect pollinators helping to keep our ecosystems healthy.
Trees and greenspace can drive down urban temperatures – but they must be able to draw water from the soil to achieve these massive cooling effects.
While its large brilliant flowers attracted early horticultural attention, this summertime stunner’s path to being a successful urban tree has not always been easy.
Our plant species are pickier about their preferred temperature range than you would expect. That means many will have to move south, seeking cooler climes.
Millions of years ago, widespread volcano eruptions in eastern Australia buried entire forests. Today, these time capsules reveal stunningly fossilised plants.
Today, these plants are iconic to the Australian bush. But banksias and their many relatives originated in far-away shores 130 million years ago.
It might surprise you to know we share our cities and towns with a huge range of native animals. But dog and cat poo can signal to wildlife that predators are about and they should stay away.
Whether riding on the feathers of birds or evolving on Gondwana, Australia’s plants got here in very different ways
Many gardeners worry these large larvae might damage plants. But before you squish them, read this.
Our study found it wasn’t cafes with access to sugar-rich food that led to more miner aggression. In fact, gardens were where we recorded the highest amount of aggressive behaviour.
A single seagrass plant in Shark Bay is around 4,500 years old, covers 200 square kilometres of seabed, and thrives in harsh conditions.
When a plant is stressed, it mobilises its resources and often converts its starch reserves back to sugar. As soon as this happens, the stressed plant becomes sweeter than its healthier neighbours.
A new study of how stinging tree venom causes intense agony may help uncover new ways to manage pain.
Three quarters of WA’s Stirling Ranges national park now experience fire cycles twice as frequent as species recovery rates.
In NSW, honeybees are listed as a key threatening process to biodiversity.
The current state of our climate shouldn’t be dismissed as a ‘new normal’. The hard truth is many of our ecosystems will not recover from the damage.
Top contributors
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Senior Research Associate, School of Agriculture, Food and Ecosystem Sciences, The University of Melbourne
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Associate Professor in Entomology, University of Sydney
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Associate Professor in Environmental Science, Western Sydney University
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Postdoctoral Research Officer, The University of Queensland
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Senior Research Fellow, School of Biological Sciences and Oceans Institute, The University of Western Australia
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Postdoctoral research fellow, The University of Melbourne; Adelaide University
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Distinguished Professor Emeritus in Plant Ecology, Curtin University
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Associate Professor in Biology, Flinders University
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Professor of Animal Behaviour, University of New England
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Postdoctoral Fellow in Urban Biodiversity, The University of Melbourne
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Lecturer in Plant Ecology, Macquarie University
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Professor in Natural Resource Economics, Adelaide University
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Adjunct Assoc Professor Central Queensland University and Principal Curator Geosciences Queensland Museum, CQUniversity Australia
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Gary Kendrick is a Friend of The Conversation.
Winthrop Professor, Oceans Institute, The University of Western Australia
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Lecturer in Biological Sciences, University of Wollongong