Ken Thompson

If a plant has pollen and berries, then surely it must flower? If it doesn’t, what is it? Ken Thompson investigates the evidence

The doctrine of signatures suggested fern ‘seeds’ could make you invisible, Ken Thompson explains why the news is “absolute nonsense”

We all know about holly and mistletoe, but the story of frankincense is sadly lacking in Christmas cheer

Niger seed is great for attracting goldfinches, but it comes with exotic baggage

Chlorinated hydrocarbons are widely used as solvents and as raw materials for the synthesis of all kinds of useful products, such as cleaning agents and pesticides.

Even before they do any climbing, twining stems revolve and, once they hit a support, this revolving leads naturally to twining in whichever direction they had previously been revolving.

One of the less welcome consequences of my now not-so recent move to Devon was making the acquaintance of a pest that I’d not previously heard of:

Let’s assume you would like your garden to have a “tropical” look.

Reading a magazine article recently, I was surprised to find “marsh fritillary” included among a list of plants.

I just tried answering a few practice UK citizenship tests.