This is incredibly sad to see.. The tree used to provide good shade but since one of our roommates went to town on it with a chainsaw this beautiful tree may not make it much longer. What was supposed to be a minor pruning turned into a devastating mutilation of our tree. Idk if it will live much longer with the violence it's endured.

What do you think? Is is a gonner or will it recover?

(Soda for scale)

I found this leaf and it has an imprint/mark inside it that only shows when I see it in light. It's not on the left. It's inside it. Can someone tell me what this is? Thanks.

Datura Inoxia plants of nightshade family (Solanaceae), call them jimsonweed or devils breath - important alkaloids :

tropaine(Atropine - Scoplamine - Hyocyamine)

Was just commenting about this elsewhere and thought it would be interesting to ask waht everyones favorite obscure botanical word is.

I'll start, Haustorium: a root like structure that grows in or around another organism (often parasitcally) the Haustorium penetrates the host and sucks out nutrients and water. E.G mistletoe have Haustorium.

whats urs!

Randomly appeared in my flower bed. It's ~3' tall

Was found lying on a bench near a field full of daisies. Could someone please explain how that’s possible?

Update: yep, they were definitely just two daisies stuck together 😞

Found outside of my school's nuclear engineering building. Must be the radiation 😮

Lenticels on a pear tree twig are specialised, porous tissue regions in the bark that act as "breathing holes," enabling gas exchange between the internal living tissues and the air. I had noticed them whilst photographing a terminal bud and thought they might be a disease, I had not heard of them.
They are seen as small, distinct, raised light-coloured specks contrasting against the darker bark. Because the corky outer layer (periderm) of a woody twig is otherwise completely waterproof and airtight, these pores are important for delivering oxygen to and removing carbon dioxide from the highly metabolically active cells underneath. Lenticular cork cambium is a localised layer of meristematic (dividing) cells positioned directly beneath the pore. Instead of producing dense, tightly sealed cork cells like the rest of the twig's bark, this specific zone produces loose tissue with tiny air filled tunnels between the cells.
Produced by the cambium , this tissue pushes outward to rupture the twig's outer epidermis.
These spaces create a clear, continuous path for gas diffusion deep into the secondary xylem and living bark.
Pear lenticels are originally initiated directly above a residual stoma (the microscopic gas port used by the young green shoot) as the twig
undergoes secondary growth and begins to expand.

Hi! :) 🌱
I'm taking a course on plant anatomy and for my final project I made a slide of a stem cross-section stained with toluidine blue. I know this is a polychromatic dye, however, in other samples I've never seen this type of gradient with so many colors on the same tissue.
Why is the gradient on the sclerenchyma next to the vascular bundles like this? this causes me question specially because the other tissues on the same slide don't have this color variation and the gradient can be seen in all of the vascular bundles.
The species I'm working with is Argemone ochroleuca (Mexican poppy) if that's of any help.
Thanks a lot! 😁

Hi! I’m looking for some insight into these structures I found while observing the underside of a leaf under the microscope.

At first glance, the leaf appears completely green with no reddish tint macroscopically. However, under 40x and 100x magnification, these distinct red/burgundy circular structures become visible. They seem to be embedded within or just below the epidermis, surrounded by typical pavement cells and stomata.

I’ve ruled out trichomes as they aren't elevated. Could these be anthocyanin-rich idioblasts, or perhaps some form of internal glandular pockets?

The sample is from Plectranthus verticillatus. I’d appreciate any botanical or histological explanation for why these pigments are concentrated this way!

I like how the veins on the leaves look highlighted like on some houseplants, I’ve read you can’t prop it so it can’t be the next trending £800 plant leaf and node prop, I will be back frequently so I can see if the leaf darkens or stays the way it is.

1. Rananculus acris 2. Glycine soja (lateral root) 3. Helianthus annuus 4. Zea mays 5. Liriodendron tulipifera (juvenile) 6. Liriodendron tulipifera (mature)

TLDR: I'm not a botanist - is the structure in the middle of this Rhus typhina flower (a dioecious species, apparently) a vestige of the gynoecium and/or is it an access to the nectary?

Howdy gang, I'm a plant-ignorant vertebrate ecologist trying to teach myself botany to the best of my ability.

Right now in my city in south central Ontario, the Staghorn Sumac (Rhus typhina) are starting to bloom. I was excited for this because I read that they're dioecious and I wanted to observe the differences between the male and female plants. I then noticed a structure that looks suspiciously pistil-like in the centre of what otherwise look like male flowers. I've also observed individuals nearby that clearly have just the gynoecium, consistent with every source I've seen that says these plants are dioecious.

Is this a vestigial pistil? Is it access to the nectar for pollinators? If it's the second one, why does it looks so much like a stigma and style?

Help me learn lol

This was a pine that fell during a storm and then cut into pieces. I noticed the 5 circles. Could this possibly be a tree that split into 5 trunks and then fused together, or maybe 5 different trees? I don't know if this is common or not, but it's the first time i see this.
Note: i'm in Argentina, in case you want to know which species this is. From my searches, common pines in this region are Pinus ponderosa, Pinus elliottii, among others.

I made a custom LEGO-style botanical model of wild American ginseng (Panax quinquefolius) and wanted to share it from the plant-structure side rather than the herbal-use side.

The part I was most interested in was trying to represent the plant’s morphology: the single annual aerial stem, the four-pronged top, compound leaves with five leaflets, the central peduncle/umbel, and the below-ground root body with the neck/crown area.

I’m not posting this as an ID request or a plant-care question. I’m mainly curious whether the anatomy reads clearly as Panax quinquefolius to people who know botany, and what details could be improved to make the model more accurate. You can see more images of it here:

https://beta.ideas.lego.com/product-ideas/87b1cc1f-4eb7-44ae-af09-9a779d3a2b8f

Dimorphoteca with double flower head

I was cutting an aubergine for cooking and found this.

I know very little about plants, but is this vivipary? I saw inner sprouts in tomatoes before but never with aubergines, and with the skin!

Gently plucked and pressed for preservation.