Mei (Prunus mume) is a peculiar woody ornamental plant famous for its inviting fragrance in winter. However, in this valuable plant, the mechanism behind floral volatile development remains poorly defined. Therefore, to explore the floral scent formation, a comparative transcriptome was conducted in order to identify the global transcripts specifying flower buds and blooming flowers of P. mume....

BACKGROUND This paper reflects the empirical findings of an ethnobotanical survey which was undertaken in Patriata (New Murree) of district Rawalpindi in Pakistan. The aims and objectives of the study were to document indigenous knowledge of plants particularly of medicinal, veterinary, fruit, vegetable, fodder, fuel etc. METHODS For this purpose, the whole area was surveyed for documenting f...

www.frontiersinecology.org © The Ecological Society of America F an airplane, we often look out the window and survey the landscape as we begin our final descent. As we get closer to the ground, our focus changes from an initial broad survey of the topography to an increasingly detailed picture of vegetation patterns. Perhaps the first thing we notice is the extent to which the land is covered ...

Woody encroachment threatens prairie ecosystems globally, and thus understanding the mechanisms that facilitate woody encroachment is of critical importance. Coastal tallgrass prairies along the Gulf Coast of the US are currently threatened by the spread of several species of woody plants. We studied a coastal tallgrass prairie in Texas, USA, to determine if existing woody structure increased t...

Weed Risk Assessment (WRA) methods for evaluating invasiveness in plants have evolved rapidly in the last two decades. Many WRA tools exist, but none were specifically designed to screen ornamental plants prior to being released into the environment. To be accepted as a tool to evaluate ornamental plants for the nursery industry, it is critical that a WRA tool accurately predicts non-invasivene...