Issue 7: January 2022
Article
How urban agriculture can improve food security in US cities
By Miguel Altieri • January 1, 2022
Urban agriculture is imperative for more people to have access to fresh and healthful foods.
Article
Fossils suggest an aquatic plant that bloomed underwater was among first flowering plants
By David Dilcher • January 1, 2022
The Emeritus Professor of Geological Sciences and Paleobotany, Indiana University of the Montsechia, explores the fossil record of a plant which lived 130 million years ago.
Article
An environmental sociologist explains how permaculture offers a path to climate justice
By Christina Ergas • January 1, 2022
The ethical philosophy and sustainable practices of permaculture take on a new urgency in a warming world.
Interview
Healthy soil is the real key to feeding the world
By David R. Montgomery • January 1, 2022
The professor of earth and space sciences at the University of Washington, embarked on a 6-month trip studying the degradation of soil across farms.
Poetry
Pétrichor
By Clara Muller • January 1, 2022
Poetry that amplifies our connection to the natural world and its range of emotions that defines the human experience.
Interview
Scent and the Male Orchid Bee: A talk with Hsurae
By Gayil Nalls • January 1, 2022
Male orchid bees are perfume makers. They collect scents from floral and fetid objects to compose their perfume which they then store in special organs on the back of their hind legs. A practitioner of BioArt has preserved a form of this fragrance using the science of attraction.
Issue 6: December 2021
Article
The Amazing Growth of the Christmas Tree
By François Lévêque • December 1, 2021
Explore the past, present, and future of the Christmas tree.
Article
Loved to death: Australian sandalwood is facing extinction in the wild
By Richard McLellan, David M Watson, and Kingsley Dixon • December 1, 2021
Part of rituals around the world since antiquity, Sandalwood is facing a crisis.
Article
Your skin can ‘sniff’ certain aromas that help it heal faster
By Hanns Hatt • December 1, 2021
The German scientist, who discovered olfactory receptors throughout the human body, tells us why traditions of aromatic plants use for ‘magical’ healing really work.
Interview
Guided by Plant Voices
By Steve Paulson • December 1, 2021
An Interview with plant ecologist Monica Gagliano who knows plants are sensitive, feeling beings.
Article
Inside my painter’s mind
By Catherine Gropper • December 1, 2021
The poet reminds us of our warming world and our shared humanity.
Article
Aromatic Flora and Priority Conservation
By Gayil Nalls • December 1, 2021
Learn how conservationists prioritize endangered species, and why conservation must involve us all.
Issue 5: November 2021
Interview
Pennsylvania’s Best Kept Secrets: An Interview with Rebecca Bowen
By Gail Nalls • November 1, 2021
We spoke with the conservationist, who is protecting rare wild plants for the state.
Article
20 Beautiful New Biospheres
November 1, 2021
Take a look at 20 new biospheres that UNESCO has designated to help sustain life on our planet.
Article
Listening to Nature: How Sound Can Help Us Understand Environmental Change
By Garth Paine • November 1, 2021
Learn how exposure to the sounds of nature is good for our health, well-being and happiness and can tell us about the health of the environment.
Article
Learning to Speak Shrub
By Elizabeth Preston • November 1, 2021
An introduction to some thought-provoking ideas about how plants use molecular code to communicate and survive.
Article
Human Tendencies
By Amos Zeeberg, Jonathon Keats & Brandon Keim • November 1, 2021
With good humor, the writers tell us about the traits we share with plants and animals.
Article
Two Poems
By Judith McConnell Steele • November 1, 2021
A guide in poetry through the wilds of Idaho.
Issue 4: October 2021
Article
How other primates self-medicate – and what they could teach us
By Sophia Daoudi • October 1, 2021
An animal behaviorist tells us about monkey species that eat plants, soils, and charcoal to both treat and prevent diseases.
Article
A Fragrance Medicine Wheel Garden
By E. Barrie Kavasch • October 1, 2021
American Indian Medicine Wheel Gardens are an ancient and powerful way of creating a sacred planting space and working with natural energies for healing and renewal.
Article
“Molecular Still Lives” Show the Science in Our Food in Us
By Heather Sparks • October 1, 2021
A journey into the painting subjects that depicts our modern food supply and how it impacts our bodies and lives.
Article
Who Picks Whom?
By Jake Eshelman • October 1, 2021
Through photography and poetry, an artist and visual researcher explores the relationship between people, plants and magic, as told through the work and practice of aTexas-based witch, occult herbalist and microbiologist.
Article
The Wisdom of Plants and the Future of Fashion
By Daria Dorosh • October 1, 2021
A pioneering advocate of sustainable fashion asks us to look to weeds for clothing inspiration.
Article
Two of the Greatest ‘Healing Weeds’ in the World
By Nimal Chandrasena • October 1, 2021
An expert in the utilization of colonizing weed species profiles two highly significant medicinal plants from Eastern cultures.
Issue 3: September 2021
Article
Rediscovering Bee battles: why our native pollinators are losing the war
By Kelsey K. Graham • September 1, 2021
As global commerce grows, the movement of goods is occurring at ever-faster rates. And with increased global trade comes the spread of non-native species. This includes invasive insects that are making life difficult for domestic bees.
Article
15 Health and Well-being Benefits of Plants
By Charles Hall and Madeline W. Dickson • September 1, 2021
Why plants make us more resilient and help safeguard our future
Article
Why Some Species Thrive after Catastrophe – Rules for Making the Most of an Apocalypse
By Nicholas R. Longrich • September 1, 2021
Sixty-six million years ago, an asteroid struck the Earth. The world was plunged into darkness, killing the dinosaurs and over 90% of all species alive. Today, every living thing descends from the handful of surviving species. But not all survivors thrived.
Article
Dumbarton Oaks Gardens; Celebrating Landscape and Legacy
By Liz Macklin • September 1, 2021
This year with a fanfare of blossoms and new energy in programs blending science and the arts, Dumbarton Oaks marks its one hundredth anniversary.
Article
Life Always Wins. Follow Me.
By Richard Harkess • September 1, 2021
A botanist is introduced to escapees from the atomic bomb in Hiroshima.
Article
Supporting Pollinators, Yourself, and Your Ecological Community with Anise Hyssop
By Gayil Nalls • September 1, 2021
With fragrance, food, and therapeutic properties, the giant anise hyssop (Agastache foeniculum) can be a big contributor to an eco-community.
Issue 2: August 2021
Article
Rediscovering Dumbarton Oaks and one of America’s First Landscape Architects
By Liz Macklin • August 1, 2021
Liz Macklin explores the historic garden at Dumbarton Oaks with Director of Garden and Grounds, Jonathan Kavalier, and discuss the genius of Beatrix Farrand’s design and ways to meet challenges in today’s gardens.
Article
We Crush, Poison, and Destroy Our Insects at Our Own Peril
By John Hainze • July 1, 2021
Insects are escape artists. Now they face a threat more pernicious than predation.
Article
Can Plants Think?
By Stuart Thompson • July 1, 2021
They could one day force us to change our definition of intelligence
Article
Why Do Flowers Smell?
By Richard Harkess • July 1, 2021
Animal pollinators can carry pollen from one flower’s stigma to another flower’s ovule as they forage for food
Article
The Plan of the Grounds
By Beatrix Farrand • July 1, 2021
Excepted from the Reef Point Gardens Bulletin, Vol. 1, No. 3, September, 1948
Issue 1: July 2021
Article
How to Plant the Forests of the Future
By Lauren Oakes • July 1, 2021
In the past, forest restoration could be informed by what once was. Now we have to make hard decisions about what we’re working toward.
Article
Rising Levels of Carbon Dioxide: It’s personal
By Lewis Ziska • July 1, 2021
A large majority of people, even in the United States, recognize climate change as real, but the percent who are actively changing their lifestyle, aggressively fighting to prevent climate change is much smaller. Why?
Article
How small family forests can help meet the climate challenge
By Gabriel Popkin • July 1, 2021
This 95-acre woods in south-central Pennsylvania’s ridge-and-valley country is a hunting and hiking refuge co-owned by eight families. As much as he loves it, Leiby knows it could be even better.
Article
Mind the Gap Between Action and Impact
By Zachary Adams • July 1, 2021
Learning is rapid and reliable when rewards immediately follow the action and slow and even non-existent when rewards are substantially delayed in time.
Interview
A Rare Plant Conservation Success Story from Gibraltar
By Gayil Nalls • July 1, 2021
Dr. Rhian Guillem of the Gibraltar Botanic Gardens discusses the Gibraltar Campion, Silene tomentosa.
Article
One Thing We Could All Do To Make a Difference
By Gayil Nalls and the WS/C Advisory Board • July 1, 2021
I asked WSC’s knowledgeable Board of Advisors who have diverse expertise and perspectives to name one thing they think we all can do to make a difference. This is what they said.