Welcome to March! If you walk in the forest this week, you might detect the song of a non-descript little brown bird called the "brown creeper." Brown creepers are hard to see. Their habit is to creep ...

Gardeners who limit their love to leaves and flowers are barking up the wrong tree. Sure, those ephemeral features are undeniably seductive, but their allure is limited to warmer months. In the ...

The center of a tree or shrub stem (from roots to trunk, branches, and twigs) is woody, composed of xylem cells that conduct water from the roots to the upper parts of the tree. That woody section is ...

Mary Jo DiLonardo has worked in print, online, and broadcast journalism for 25 years and covers nature, health, science, and animals. Young trees sometimes have smooth bark that's unbroken by ridges.