The week’s compilation of my favorite botanical related news:

Friends turn mountain into luscious forest: featured image.

University of Tennessee leads Wildflower Pilgrimage in the Great Smokey Mountains: A tradition in its 66 year.

Technicolor Arabidopsis: It looks like a sea anemone, but is actually the Arabidopsis stigma.

University of North Florida dedicates new Biological Sciences building: We will wait for photos of this:

“The facility has several points of interests, including an interior courtyard with a green wall; Tree of Life conference room; greenhouse; aquatic teaching labs, a necropsy lab; saltwater storage and prep rooms. The interior courtyard, named Darwin’s Garden, is planted in native Florida species and will be used as a living botany classes. Five green walls on which flowering vines are growing will provide natural shading to the building.The greenhouse, located on the roof of the building, is fully automated and designed to hold plant collections for botany labs and experiments requiring natural light.”

Attempting to save the scrub forests of Southern India: home to terrestrial orchids

Joseph Banks makes the Weekly Botanical twice, in a book review of The Age of Wonder, a book based on his adventures, and in an exhibit at the Santos Museum of Economic Botany in Adelaide, which will display an exclusive collection of botanical illustrations that were made upon his return from his explorations.

Plant Hunters:An in-depth article about plant hunting today