June 2024

 Very few botanists ever discover a new species. Even fewer get that species named for them. But only one botanist in a million accomplishes both of those things and is the subject of a children’s book about their life. Charles Stewart Parker (1882-1950) achieved that distinction.    Parker grew up in a relatively prosperous African […]

As we all remember from Botany 101, all seed and spore producing green plants have an “alternation of generations” life cycle, in which a spore-bearing phase (sporophyte) alternates with a gamete-producing phase (gametophyte).  In flowering plants, the gametophyte is reduced to just a few cells within the stamens and ovaries of a flower that ultimately […]