The Environmental Biology Program of Boyce Thompson Inst. for Plant Research at Cornell University is now on the Web offering information on research focusing on the interaction of plants and the environment. The research spans many levels of biological organization, from individual plant organs to ecosystems and beyond. This site provides details about staff, facilities, and the many research...

ScienceNOW is a regularly updated Web site from the California Academy of Sciences, which features a changing display of Academy research in the natural sciences. Four featured sections -- Headline Science, Academy Research, Where in the World, and Wild Lives -- offer brief overviews of discoveries by Academy scientists and other "headline-making" science news. Each section includes photos and...

This Plants in Peril website was created by the Center for Plant Conservation as a "guide to exploring biodiversity and rare native plant conservation for middle school educators." The site contains clear, concise informational pages on subjects like What is Biodiversity?, Plants and People, and Challenges of Saving Plants in Peril. Additionally, the site offers teacher guidelines for four plant...

The Kew Royal Botanic Gardens' State of the World Plants is an interactive, multimedia report that recently earned a Webby nomination for best Science site. It's easy to see why: the report is full of gorgeous photographs, fascinating graphs, and informative maps. As this website notes, the report offers "a baseline assessment of our current knowledge on the diversity of plants on earth, the...

The Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research is committed to a number of research goals, one of which is "to determine whether and how a detailed understanding of molecular mechanisms defined in model plant species can be used to rationally manipulate selected traits in crop plants." The Institute was founded in 1928 as part of the Kaiser-Willhelm-Gesellschaft and the first director, Edwin...

This article about plant growth beneath sea ice by Anne-Maree Shwarz appears in Water and Atmosphere online, a quarterly publication of the New Zealand-based National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA). Shwarz's "article describes some of the linkages between ice-cover, underwater light and primary production that have been investigated" by ICECUBE, a NIWA research program working...

Representing the collections of the Oregon State University Herbarium, the Vascular Plants database "provides access to all known vascular plant holotypes (ferns, gymnosperms, and angiosperms) and isotypes..." all within three herbaria housed at Oregon State University, University of Oregon, and Willamette University. Although the Herbarium collections have a "strong emphasis on the state of...

The Toxic Plant Database was developed by a team of Professors working through Texas Cooperative Extension, a division of the Texas A&M University System. Although the database focuses on toxic plants in Texas, many of the plants are found in other states as well as Mexico. This is a well-organized website containing pictures, maps, plant descriptions, information on the toxic agent, symptoms of...

The University of British Columbia (UBC) Centre for Plant Research website displays a simple, yet ambitious, mission statement: "To explore, explain, and maintain plant life on earth." The Centre is associated with the UBC Botanical Garden, and focuses on the following research themes: Evolution and Biodiversity; Evolutionary Genomics; Plant Biotechnology and Breeding; Plant Physiology and Biotic...