mr-damon/plants

Links to organic seed vendors

The sea rocket, researchers report, can distinguish between plants that are related to it and those that are not. And not only does this plant recognize its kin, but it also gives them preferential treatment.

If the sea rocket detects unrelated plants growing in the ground with it, the plant aggressively sprouts nutrient-grabbing roots. But if it detects family, it politely restrains itself.

The finding is a surprise, even a bit of a shock, in part because most animals have not even been shown to have the ability to recognize relatives, despite the huge advantages in doing so.

If an individual can identify kin, it can help them, an evolutionarily sensible act because relatives share some genes. The same discriminating organism could likewise ramp up nasty behavior against unrelated individuals with which it is most sensible to be in claws- or perhaps thorns-bared competition.

"I'm just amazed at what we've found," said Susan A. Dudley, an evolutionary plant ecologist at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, who carried out the study with a graduate student, Amanda L. File.

"Plants," Dr. Dudley said, "have a secret social life."

"This site originated in 1999 as a way to put all the plant photos and information I was gathering into one place for my own personal reference and understanding. Hypertext is magical because you can go off in any direction you want, which is sort of how my research projects tend to go, so it seemed like the perfect medium. It lived just on my computer for some time before it occurred to me that it would be really simple to put it on the internet."

As Mexico imports more corn from the United States, the country's reliance on outside supplies is drawing protests among nationalists, farmers' groups and leftist critics of Mexico's free trade economy. Earlier this year, as the last tariffs to corn imports were lifted under the North American Free Trade Agreement, farmers' groups marched against the accord in Mexico, asking for more aid.

Mr. León and the farmers' group he helped found, the Center for Integral Campesino Development of the Mixteca, or Cedicam, have reached into the past to revive pre-Hispanic practices. To arrest erosion, Cedicam has planted trees, mostly native ocote pines, a million in the past five years, raised in the group's own nurseries.

Working communally, the villagers built stone walls to terrace the hillside, and they dug long ditches along the slopes to halt the wash of rainwater that dragged the soil from the mountains. Trapped in canals, the water seeps down to recharge the water table and restore dried-up springs.

As the land has begun to produce again, Mr. León has reintroduced the traditional milpa, a plot where corn, climbing beans and squash grow together. The pre-Hispanic farming practice fixes nutrients in the soil and creates natural barriers to pests and disease.

Along the way, the farmers have modernized the ancient techniques. Mr. León has encouraged farmers to use natural compost as fertilizer, introduced crop rotation, and improved on traditional seed selection.

My compilation of photos, text and links about the Datura species.

An as-yet-unidentified decorative pond plant that I often see in these parts.

Bent Skovmand, a plant scientist who helped to create the "doomsday vault," a massively fortified cavern to safeguard three million kinds of unique crop seeds against catastrophe, died Tuesday in Kavlinge, Sweden. He was 61.

His wife, Eugenia, announced his death, The Associated Press reported. The cause was complications of a brain tumor, Swedish news reports said.

The vault was only part of Dr. Skovmand's crusade to save and propagate the best of the best strains of valuable food plants. His mission, he often said, was ending hunger.

He searched the world to discover and preserve lost strains of wheat and other crops and helped breed them into stronger, more disease-resistant strains. He helped assemble more than 150,000 varieties of wheat seed and more than 20,000 kinds of corn.

He worked with scientists, farmers and industrial groups in developing countries to make triticale, a hybrid of rye and wheat, a commercial crop.

In 1991, Time magazine said that Dr. Skovmand, "while not exactly a household name," had had "more to do with the welfare of the world's five billion people than many heads of state."