THE issue of the fourth volume of “The Cactaceæ” brings this sumptuous monograph of the family to a conclusion. Previous volumes have been discussed in NATURE, vol. 107, p. 580, and vol. in, p. 426.

The cactus family (Cactaceae) comprises around 2,000 species of succulent plants that have undergone remarkable diversification across the Americas. Modern phylogenetic analyses integrate nuclear and ...

Smart gardeners in West Hawaii are installing some drought tolerant plants in their landscapes. Of course, one of the most drought tolerant groups of plants are those that can thrive in the desert. We ...

This question of why some branches of the tree of life explode into thousands of species, while others remain small, has shaped evolutionary biology since Charles Darwin. My colleague and I have ...

Biologists continue to debate the genealogy of the cactus family, even differing by a factor of 10 about how many different genera there are. A study based on new genome sequences of four columnar ...

With almost a third of cacti species threatened with extinction, a new open access database of cactus ecology and evolution could help scientists and conservationists save species from the brink.

The prickly plants can persist in some of the world’s most parched and hostile environments for decades or longer A cactus in bloom is pure poetry — particularly that famous line by Walt Whitman: “Do ...