Plants

The Best of Our Knowledge explores topics on learning, education, and research.New research links pesky mosquitoes that thrive in urban areas to invasive plants.And scientists have confirmed an atmosphere on a distant planet in what’s called a habitable zone – they think it could potentially be home to life far outside our solar system.

The Best of Our Knowledge explores topics on learning, education, and research.New research links pesky mosquitoes that thrive in urban areas to invasive plants.And scientists have confirmed an atmosphere on a distant planet in what’s called a habitable zone – they think it could potentially be home to life far outside our solar system.

The Best of Our Knowledge explores topics on learning, education, and research.A very common houseplant is revealing the secret math of plants.And scientists estimate an underground network of tiny fungal filaments would, if placed end-to-end, span 10 percent of our Milky Way galaxy.

The Best of Our Knowledge explores topics on learning, education, and research.A very common houseplant is revealing the secret math of plants.And scientists estimate an underground network of tiny fungal filaments would, if placed end-to-end, span 10 percent of our Milky Way galaxy.

The geographic range of a plant species is the area where it can survive and grow. That range is shaped by climatic factors such as temperature, precipitation, soil moisture, humidity, and wind. When those conditions change, plants must either adapt, shift their range, or risk decline.

WAM Theatre’s first mainstage production of 2026 is ‘Rooted,’ by Deborah Zoe Laufer.WAM Theatre presents ‘Rooted’ at the Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre at Shakespeare& Company in Lenox, Massachusetts May 1 through May 16. For ticket and showtime information visit wamtheatre.com.

Dr. Katie Takayasu is an Integrative Medicine physician, author, and speaker in the holistic health space, bridging the gap between traditional Western medicine and the evidenced-based complementary health tools of nutrition, acupuncture, meditation, botanicals and lifestyle optimization. She is an Assistant Professor of Clinical Medicine at Columbia University/New York Presbyterian and teaches the next generation of doctors about healing the whole patient mind, body and spirit. Joe Donahue spoke with her at a CulinaryArts@SPAC event on March 25, 2023. Dr. Katie Takayasu’s book is “Plants First: A Physician’s Guide to Wellness Through a Plant-Forward Diet.”

"Brave the Wild River" by Melissa L. Sevigny tells the riveting tale of two pioneering botanists and their historic boat trip down the Colorado River and through the Grand Canyon. The book is a spellbinding adventure of two women, botanists Elzada Clover and Lois Jotter, who risked their lives to make an unprecedented botanical survey of a defining landscape in the American West, at a time when human influences had begun to change it forever.

Cynthia Wick’s “Floraborealis,” on display at Berkshire Botanical Garden through August 27th, features joyous, incandescent paintings that emerged out of the dark Covid years of isolation, when the artist took refuge in her studio in Lenox, MA, going inward for inspiration and exploring her memories of color, light and beauty.

In "Becoming a Gardener," Catie Marron chronicles her transformation into a gardener over the course of eighteen months, seeding the details of her experience with rich advice from writers as diverse as Eleanor Perényi and Karel Capek, Penelope Lively, and Jamaica Kincaid.