Keith Smith 🪴🔭💻

Fig. 5 Schematic representation of how iron (Fe) availability regulates callose deposition and impacts root physiology.

✨ Paper spotlight ✨

(🧵 1/7) … Root cell wall plasticity in iron homeostasis: An overlooked frontier in plant nutrition
nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Edible plant families:
Actinidiaceae🥝
Apiaceae🥕
Arecaceae🥥
Bromeliaceae🍍
Ericaceae🫐
Fagaceae🌰
Lauraceae🥑
Musaceae🍌
Oleaceae🫒
Vitaceae🍇
Amaryllidaceae🧄🧅
Asteraceae🥬🌻
Fabaceae🥜🫘
Poaceae🌽🌾
Rutaceae🍊🍋
Cucurbitaceae🥒🎃🍉🍈
Solanaceae🍆🥔🍅🌶️🫑
Rosaceae🍏🍎🍐🍓🍑🍒

Seems to be active exploring of China. This is at least the 4th new plant species I've seen reported this year.

How plants push roots through hard soil Researchers have discovered how plant roots penetrate compacted soil by deploying a well-known engineering principle.

How plants push roots through hard soil.

Researchers have discovered how plant roots penetrate compacted soil by deploying a well-known engineering principle.

Could be a bracken fern getting started

Comprehensive analysis of proteins associated with light responses and stress tolerance in the gametophyte of the fern Dryopteris affinis ssp. affinis https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2025.12.05.692567v1

Pteridology (FERNS) with Fay-Wei Li Podcast Episode · Ologies with Alie Ward · 12/03/2025 · 1h 4m

Fay-Wei Li was interviewed by Ologies Podcast, a top 5 science show in Apple podcasts! Tune in to hear about fern evolution, ferns not to have in your house, the most expensive ferns, tastiest ferns, mathematical mysteries, and a genome that makes no sense. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/p...

Graphic with Arabidopsis thaliana plant. It says in the text: We're hiring: 5 PhD positions, apply by 10 January, 2026. Over the caption, there are keywords: Plant Physiology, Epigenetics, Biotechnology, Cell Biology, Bioinformatics. At the bottom there are logos of IMPRS, Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology, University of Potsdam and the Max Planck Society.

Looking for a #PhDposition in #PlantScience ?
Our #IMPRS @mpi-mp-potsdam.bsky.social and @unipotsdam.bsky.social is #hiring !

📅 Apply by 10 January 2026

More info:
👉 www.mpimp-golm.mpg.de/IMPRS-PhD

Please share this post to plant it in the right feed 🌱 #PlantSciJobs

#fern #ferns

Is HEMA in her future? Historical European Martial Arts.

The correct term for the 'dots' on the underside of the fern is sori, singular sorus. In each sorus are many sporangia. In each sporangia are 64 spores, mostly. There can be a million spores from one fern plant.

A trait of ferns is no flowers, thus no pollen.

Ferns evolved before flowering plants.

Polystichum oligodontum, habit.

#NewSpecies!
Polystichum oligodontum
A newly discovered fern from #china!

Treatment: treatment.plazi.org/id/00D2F038-...
Publication: doi.org/10.3897/phyt...
#PhytoKeys #PolystichumOligodontum

#FAIRdata
#OA #biology #ecology #taxonomy #nature #biodiversity #conservation #botany #plants #fern

Fern stems reveal secrets of evolution – how constraints in development can lead to new forms Is an organism a sum of its parts, or should they be considered as a whole? New research on ferns shows how the way scientists understand evolution affects how they study life.

Why aren’t there square trees or mammals with wheels?

A new study of fern stems shows how linked traits — developmental constraints — shape the limits and possibilities of evolution.

buff.ly/CeWtabg
🧪🌱

Are there hiquats?

Applications due by Dec. 1st.

Correct. Asparagus fern is not a fern. It is
.
.
. drum roll
.
.
a member of the asparagus family.
It has flowers. Ferns don't have flowers.

🔭

It is an interesting study. The article does not state the relative weight ratio and extrapolate to the number of hectares to extract a kilo of REEs, as well as compare to the amount of REEs found per ton of ore.

Chinese team finds a fern that makes rare earth elements Scientists have discovered a fern from South China that naturally forms tiny crystals containing rare earth elements (REEs). This breakthrough opens the door to a promising new way of "green mining"…

🔍 Read: Scientists have discovered a fern from South China that naturally forms tiny crystals containing rare earth elements (REEs). This breakthrough opens the door to a promising new way of "green mining".

phys.org/news/2025-11...

Come and join us here in Cambridge! Applications open for a new faculty position, for a researcher in computational and/or theoretical biology, based jointly in Genetics and Mathematics. Happy to answer questions about research, teaching and working here.

www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/faculty...

My new Emmy Noether Group is recruiting!

🔬 Two PhD positions in plant pathogen evolution

🧬 Start: April 2026 (flexible)

📍 Dept. of Phytopathology & Plant Protection @rstam.bsky.social @uni-kiel.de

⏰ Apply by 15 Dec 2025

🔗 More info: www.uni-kiel.de/personal/de/...

Do get in touch or share 😊

"We have the receipt of fern-seed, we walk invisible." - Henry IV, Part 1 (Act 2, Scene 1), Shakespeare

How ferns reproduced was a mystery. No seeds were ever found. Ferns must have magical properties.

A few pages in a new book, 'Ferns', published 2025, talks about the Lady Gaga fern along with a full page illustration. A great book on other ferns too. 😀

Illustrations are gooorgeoussss!!

bsky.app/profile/fern...

The description of Sensitive fern, Onocela sensibilis is correct.

It is a once-cut fern with a triangular frond. Sporangia appear on separate fertile stalks.

The picture shows what looks like Royal Fern, Osmunda spectabilis.

Royal fern is twice-cut, sporangia appearing at the tips of the frond.

The mystery of 𝐴𝑠𝑝𝑖𝑑𝑖𝑢𝑚 𝑎𝑚𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑜𝑛𝑒𝑢𝑟𝑜𝑛 is solved as researchers reveal its true origin is Mexico, not Cuba, correcting over a century of botanical misidentification and renaming it 𝐶𝑡𝑒𝑛𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑠 𝑎𝑚𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑜𝑛𝑒𝑢𝑟𝑜𝑠.

🔗 doi.org/10.3897/phyt...

We have TWO post-doctoral fellowships in the Biodiversity Centre at UBC next year! Am happy to chat if you might want to be hosted in my lab. biodiversity.ubc.ca/training-and... Deadline January 15th!

arXiv will no longer accept review articles and position papers unless they have been accepted at a journal or a conference and complete successful peer review.

This is due to being overwhelmed by a hundreds of AI generated papers a month.

Yet another open submission process killed by LLMs.

A species of Maidenhair Fern, Adiantum sp. , no sure which one of several in Australia. Don't see many ferns from 'Down Under' here in New England. 😁

Great picture. It reminds me of the illustrations in the book "Ferns".

www.laurasilburn.co.uk

bsky.app/profile/fern...

My 11-year-old sitting with her pile of Halloween candy, sorting it into a bar graph

We have progressed from data collection to data analysis.