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Botanical University Challenge @bucbotany.bsky.social · 7h

🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃🖌🐡 Some African species of Acacia have lipid-rich detachable tips on the pinnules (leaflets) of leaves. They are believed to have evolved in a symbiotic relationship with ants. What is the name of these tips? #BUC2026

Leaves which have small pale yellow detachable tips to each leaflet.

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Botanical University Challenge @bucbotany.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃🖌🐡Wildlife now on tunnelling spoil from HS2, become scarce nutrient-poor chalk grassland not previous high quality agricultural land. Includes knapweed, wild carrot, lady's bedstraw, pyramidal orchid - and insects & birds that need these plants. #BUC2026 www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

Screenshot chalk grassland illustrating using tunnelling spoil for HS2 to make scarce nutrient-poor chalk grassland rather than restoring previous high quality agricultural land.

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Botanical University Challenge @bucbotany.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃🖌🐡 Lots of relationships between insects & plants. Some beneficial to both. Plant structures in picture are to house insects like ants that predate on other insects. Plant gets some predators removed; insects get shelter & food. But what name is given to these structures? #BUC2026

Group of thorns from a plant, 2 of which are swollen at base.

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Botanical University Challenge @bucbotany.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃🖌🐡 Genus Coffea, family Rubiaceae. C. arabica (Arabica coffee) and C. canephora (Robusta coffee) are major world crops. Originates highlands now Ethiopia and Sudan. C. arabica is a natural hybrid between C. canephora & C. eugenioides. #BUC2026 #NationalCoffeeDay

Picture coffee beans ripening on branch, coffee bushes covered with white flowers. Map of world coffee bean production, darker colours is more production.Most is Brazil

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Botanical University Challenge @bucbotany.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃🖌🐡 Another distinguished botanist at University of Reading. Vernon Heywood, plant taxonomist & conservationist. Iberian flora specialist. Associated with Flora Europea (documented 11,000 vascular plant species 1964 - 2001), founded Botanic Gardens Conservation International www.bgci.org

Photo of elderly white-haired European man in formal suit.

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Botanical University Challenge @bucbotany.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃🖌🐡 This northern Scottish grassland is covered in buds for flowers that are a late summer treat in UK & Ireland chalk/limestone/alkaline grassland. But what genus do they belong to? (Seed-heads of a different genus & species near front of photo - bonus points for its name!) #BUC2026

Brilliant blue sky, some fluffy white clouds across top of photo. Lower 2/3 photo is grassland with masses of upwards-pointing pointy flower buds. Fence along junction meadow and sky, with some distant hills. Stone wall at right.

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Botanical University Challenge @bucbotany.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃🖌🐡 Some fruits & vegetables are now eaten all over the world, like onions, while other are little-known outside their home region. This green fruit is still mainly grown in their central American home, but is part of a more widely appreciated cuisine. What is it? #BUC2026

Round green fruit inside papery cases on a wooden board.

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Botanical University Challenge @bucbotany.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃🖌🐡Beautiful autumnal flowers and fruits in grassland in northern Scotland. But what are the names of the flowering and fruiting plants? #BUC2026

Green strap-shaped grass leaves with two sorts of small pink-purple flowers among them on shortish stems with dull green leaves. Also taller stems with brilliant orange fruits.

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Botanical University Challenge @bucbotany.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃🖌🐡 Plant flavours often originally evolved to protect plants from predators - animals and insects that liked to eat them! The strong flavour of cabbages, now reduced by plant breeders, so more palatable to humans, is an example. But what enzyme is a key part of the flavour system? #BUC2026

Images of cabbage, cauliflower and fruits of shepherd's purse.

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Botanical University Challenge @bucbotany.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃🖌🐡Insects can rely on specific plant species. Ivy flowers September - November. The solitary ivy bees emerge at same time to use this pollen & nectar. Arrived from Europe in UK 2001, moving N and W, now just reaching Ireland. #BUC2026

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Botanical University Challenge @bucbotany.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃🖌🐡 Colours & patterns on petals can look different to pollinating insects from the way humans see them. Patterns are visible in UV light but not seen by humans. Possible role as nectar guides. But what chemicals have plants evolved to make their UV visible appearance? #BUC2026

Picture of a flower, cut in half to see inside of petals easily. One picture in normal white light - a nice yellow flower; another picture of the same flower but taken in UV light shows pale blue petals with a massive black stripe highlighting the pollen and nectar.

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Botanical University Challenge @bucbotany.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃🖌🐡 Of course, a lot of different species of insects eat plants, which interests some botanists. That combined knowledge has an application in plant protection for agriculture and horticulture. #BUC2026

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Botanical University Challenge @bucbotany.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃🖌🐡 In the live semifinal and final of Botanical University Challenge 2026, the teams had real live plants to identify and explain. See the teams doing this. Can you identify the family of the first plant? #BUC2026

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Botanical University Challenge @bucbotany.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃🖌🐡 Algae appear in several colours. One order of red algae (Rhodophyta) grows over surfaces. It is part of some coral reefs. What is the name of this order? #BUC2026

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Botanical University Challenge @bucbotany.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃🖌🐡 New knowledge in plant taxonomy changes ideas on which ones are most closely related. How about this long-known seaweed that turns out to be in the sea lettuce genus. What was its previous, or common, name? #BUC2026

seaweed, fine wavy thin strands of green.

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Botanical University Challenge @bucbotany.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃🖌🐡Another question from this year's Botanical University Challenge semifinals. What is the name of this genus of edible fungus found in the UK, Ireland, in fact across forested parts of Eurasia, Africa and North America? #BUC2026

Orange fungal fruit bodies with coarse ribs underneath the cap running down into the stem.

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Botanical University Challenge @bucbotany.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

🌱🌾🌺🌿🍫🌎🖌#InternationChocolateDay One of at least 4 international celebrations of chocolate. Essential ingredient is roasted, ground beans (seeds) from cacao tree (Theobroma cacao). Originates from tropical regions of South America, now also grown elsewhere like Ivory Coast, Ghana, Indonesia. #BUC2026

Pictures cacao pods developeing on tree trunk, beans inside pod, beans after roasting and milling to nibs, and man from Mesoamerica holding a cacao pod.

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Compound Interest | Chemistry infographics @compoundchem.com · 13/09/2024

It's #InternationalChocolateDay! Did you know that chocolate is toxic to dogs? 🐶 Or that some chocolate contains butyric acid, also found in vomit? 🤮 More chocolate chemistry in this updated edition of #PeriodicGraphics in @cenmag.bsky.social 👇 #ChemSky 🧪

Infographic on the chemistry of chocolate. There are three columns, one on dark chocolate, one on milk chocolate, and one on white chocolate. Dark chocolate has the highest concentration of cocoa solids, which contain theobromine, toxic to dogs. Milk chocolate commonly has compounds including vanillin and butyric acid added, which influences its taste. White chocolate doesn't contain any cocoa solids, only cocoa butter (comprised of a number of fats), sugar and milk.

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Botanical University Challenge @bucbotany.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃🖌🐡 Botanical University Challenge - some of the questions. What is the name of this species of seaweed? #BUC2026

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Botanical University Challenge @bucbotany.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃🖌🐡 Experts at the Table: idea from a BUC student. Want to spend time talking, rather than listening, to experts from RHS, university academics, professional ecologists, artists, PhD students and postdocs? We did this at 4th Student Botany Festival 2026. #BUC2026

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Nichola Hawkins @nicholahawkins.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Very sad news. As a Wye graduate I have many happy memories of ecology field trips. In the years since, our paths often crossed within the botanical community due to Dr M's tireless efforts to spread the love of plants: long may that legacy continue. 🌱

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Joanna Bagniewska @joannabagniewska.com · 07/09/2026

A huge loss to the botanical community. @drmgoeswild.bsky.social was an incredibly talented science communicator and a wonderful colleague. My 3yo corresponded with him, and said that "her friend Finn wants to be a BOTTOMIST, like Dr M". 🧪🥬

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Botanical University Challenge @bucbotany.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃🖌🐡Happy memories of Botanical University Challenge this August 2026. Winning team from Cambridge now have their name inscribed on the trophy - along with runner-up Aberdeen 2025 winners! Other semifinalists came so close - Edinburgh and Anglia Ruskin. #BUC2026 #BUC2027

Wooden trophy with names of teams on it. 4 pictures of young people who were the 4 semifinalist teams.

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Fay Newbery @fayrnhawk.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

A huge loss. DrM fought so hard to help people to overcome plant blindness. So many botany students learnt from him. Few tutors teach by song but DrM certainly did!

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Markus Wagner @wagnermarkus.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Botany was Jonathan's greatest passion but he also had a great interest in ecological restoration and amongst others did serve as a board member of the European chapter of @serestoration.bsky.social and if I remember correctly he was also running SER Europe's Twitter account.

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Botanical University Challenge @bucbotany.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

🌿🌾🌳🌍🍞🎼We are sad that Jonathan Mitchley ('DrM') passed away this week. BUC and especially the Student Botany Festival, would not exist without him. He made a big impact on the UK & Irish student botany community. Competition & festival will continue in 2027. www.reading.ac.uk/news/2026/Un...

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Botanical University Challenge @bucbotany.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃🖌🐡 Careers showcase at 4th Student Botany Festival. UK plant societies represented included the Wild Flower Society - for wild flower lovers & amateur botanists in UK & Ireland. Field meetings, online lectures, wild flower diaries. #BUC2026 thewildflowersociety.org.uk

Woman at stall with banner behind her talking with 2 other women.

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Botanical University Challenge @bucbotany.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃🖌🐡Herbarium workshop at 4th Student Botany Festival this August. Not just dried plants, but carefully recorded specimens that can remain for centuries and be used for more than plant ID - past environments, ecologies, extinct plants, element distributions, more. #BUC2026

Group of young people in laboratory holding up pressed plant specimens

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Botanical University Challenge @bucbotany.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃🖌🐡 Best memories of Botanical University Challenge #BUC2026? Happy people sharing their plant knowledge and enthusiasm. Students, industry professionals, academics from around the UK and Ireland - all with botany an important part of their lives. Looking forward to #BUC2027!!

Lecture theatre, seats filled with smiling, waving people. Red/grey/black upholstery in the lecture theatre.

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Botanical University Challenge @bucbotany.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

#BUC2026 Answer to yesterday's question is the Austrobaileyales lineage. Name, and use of star anise in the UK, suggests alcoholic drinks. How appropriate for a bank holiday, and celebration of rain & cooler temperatures returning. What is a bank holiday? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_ho...

Background of Christmas cocktail with spices on table with frosted cones, red glass balls. Question from Botanical University Challenge 2026 against it.

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Botanical University Challenge @bucbotany.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃🖌🐡 #BUC2026 Lots of questions to teams in semi-final and final. How about this one on plant evolution and classification? Do you know? Can you see an example of this lineage in the picture? Answer, of course, in the video, known by Aberdeen (3.29.42 www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqo1... )

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Botanical University Challenge @bucbotany.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

🌱🌾🌍🌳🌲🌿🍃#BUC2026 At University of Reading in part to celebrate 100 years of charter. Significant botanists there included Tom Harris FRS (1903 - 83). Wealthy background, keen on fossils since childhood, significant in paleobotany and university organisation. See more en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Har...

Black and white picture man and microscope. Text summarising his professional life as university professor and paleobotanist.

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Botanical University Challenge @bucbotany.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃🖌🐡 #BUC2026 All the semifinalist teams! Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Cambridge & Anglia Ruskin. The contest between them was so close, knowing both fundamental and little-known information about plants. Knowledge of all 32 teams that entered was so impressive.

Line of 17 young people facing the camera in front of conifers.

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Botanical University Challenge @bucbotany.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃🖌🐡Plants in art. 'Provence Pears' (2016) by Leonard McComb (1930 - 2018). Shows the inner energy he saw connecting living things flowing from the pears. williamsonartgallery.org/event/leonar... #BUC2026

4 yellow pears on green and blue swirled background. 3 upright pears, 1 on its side. Oil on canvas.

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Botanical University Challenge @bucbotany.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃🖌🐡 #BUC2026 winners - Team Glumey Sundays from University of Cambridge! Crispy dry campus but holding the British National Vegetation Classification W10 oak community woodland trophy aloft. And, apart from trees, what angiosperm is part of the community name? @cubotanicgarden.bsky.social

3 young people holding trophy aloft against a background of trees and crispy brown grass.

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Botanical University Challenge @bucbotany.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃🖌🐡One of the unforgettable images - and sounds - from the Fourth Student Botany Festival 2026. The Vegetable Orchestra. Instruments created from courgette petioles and carrots, then played with @drmgoeswild.bsky.social and Susan Medcalf (professional botanist and soprano) conducting!

Row of young people each holding musical instrument made from a vegetable. man in front to conduct them. Background is dark from night, and they are standing on wooden boards.

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Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland (BSBI) @bsbibotany.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

We loved telling students at #BUC2026 all about FISCs. They are the industry standard test to assess your botanical proficiency. Environmental consultancies are increasingly looking for applicants with a FISC. Find out more: bsbi.org/learn/field-.... @bucbotany.bsky.social @cieem.bsky.social

bsbi.org

Field Identification Skills Certificate

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Botanical University Challenge @bucbotany.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃🖌🐡 One way to make a very biodiversity wildflower meadow in Norfolk (150 plant species) from a conventional oil-seed agriculture field. Cut for hay once a year and otherwise let change happen naturally for 21 years. #BUC2026 www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Man's arm with hand reaching to hold plant with small pink flowers (common centuary) among grass. Blue sky behind.

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Botanical University Challenge @bucbotany.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃🖌🐡 🧪 #BUC2026 4th Student Botany Festival. Memories? mini-Field Identification Skills Certificate. Now run by BSBI, gave a taste of what it involves. Later, in careers session, consultancy company owner said FISC made applicants stand out. @bsbibotany.bsky.social @cieem.bsky.social

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Botanical University Challenge @bucbotany.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃🖌🐡 #BUC2026 and 4th Botany Festival end with final messages from Lauren Daly (Oxford Botanic Garden) & Jamie Thompson (University of Reading) - Go Forth & Botanise - Importance of Studying Plants. The future needs Botanists!! @newphyt.bsky.social @biologists.bsky.social

Woman talking in a lecture theatre with slide projected above her. Slide shows group picture of many (over 70) students taken at night all looking happy and excited.

Image man speaking in a lecture theatre with text on slide above him.

Text: importance of studying plants: the future needs botanists because of extinction crisis; ecosystem health; future medicine; food security; fuels; fundamental questions

Slide also shows montage of 16 plants

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Botanical University Challenge @bucbotany.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

Involvement of plant-related organisations, companies & academic institutions makes Botanical University Challenge an uplifting, valuable fun experience experience. We are very grateful to all that participate. #BUC2026

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Botanical University Challenge @bucbotany.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃🖌🐡 Day 3 Fourth Student Botany Festival 2026 starts with a careers panel. Agriculture, consultancy, horticulture, ecology, NGOs, research. Botany is the most in demand skill in ecology sector in Ireland. Panel share their career routes. #BUC2026 @cieem.bsky.social

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Botanical University Challenge @bucbotany.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃🖌🐡Botanical University Challenge 2026 and the 4th Student Botany Festival bring heavy rain to the city of Reading, UK - for at least a short time! Plants are grateful.

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Botanical University Challenge @bucbotany.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃🖌🐡 Winners and runners up in the team name competition within Botanical University Challenge #BUC2026 Winner Anglia Ruskin team, runners up Eden Project and Galway. See their winning team names in the photographs.

I kissed a burl and I liked it team winner from Anglia Ruskin University.

Back to the Fuschia from Eden Project and Rage against the Rhododendrons from Galway

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Botanical University Challenge @bucbotany.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃🖌🐡Now 4th Student Botany Festival starts. After 60 second talks, tours of plant areas. The new Learning Garden. #BUC2026

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Botanical University Challenge @bucbotany.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃🖌🐡 Getting ready for the climax of Botanical University Challenge and the 4th Student Botany Festival at University of Reading. Starts YouTube channel 13:30 BST today. Also recorded. @BotanicalUniversityChallenge #BUC2026

Getting the merch and welcome packs ready at the Palmer building.

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Botanical University Challenge @bucbotany.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃🖌🐡 🧪 Final of annual Botanical University Challenge contest on 19 August. From 32 UK and Irish teams to 4 semifinalists Aberdeen, Anglia Ruskin, Cambridge & Edinburgh. Who will will? Watch YouTube from 13:00 BST tomorrow! #BUC2026 @camplantsci.bsky.social @cubotanicgarden.bsky.social

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Botanical University Challenge @bucbotany.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃🖌🐡Semifinal & final Botanical University Challenge Wednesday 19 August, starting stream YouTube 13:30 BST. Remember which teams are in the semifinal? From universities of Aberdeen, Anglia Ruskin, Cambridge and Edinburgh! Some of the leading places in UK that study plants. #BUC2026

QR code for YouTube livestream semifinal and final Botanical University Challenge starting 13:30 BST. Pictures of people involved running competition and the 4 teams in the semifinal - from universities Aberdeen, Anglia Ruskin, Cambridge, Edinburgh.

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Botanical University Challenge @bucbotany.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

🌱🌾🌍🌺🍄🌳🌲🌿🍃🖌🐡🧪Plants need carbon dioxide, and have several ways to get it into cells for biosynthesis. Crassulacean Acid Metabolism (CAM) is used by many plants living in arid areas. They keep stomata closed in daytime, open at night. In what chemical is CO2 stored overnight in CAM? #BUC2026

Picture of a pineapple and succulent Kalanchoe fedtschenkoi (red-tinged small fleshy leaves, red flowers). Also graph over 24 hours showing peak in carbon dioxide absorption by Opuntia ficus-indica in night. All 3 of these species perform crassulacean acid metabolism as a way to take up carbon dioxide into cells at night in a form ready for the carbon fixation reactions of photosynthesis during daylight. In daytime, stomata kept closed to prevent water loss (which also prevents daytime CO2 uptake). Stomata open at night.

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