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Articles about Plantour and the plant world.
2026-04-30Plants Japan Googles the Most: a Wikipedia pageview ranking — and why #1 is Giant Hogweed
We compiled 12 months of Japanese Wikipedia pageviews (Apr 2025–Mar 2026) for the 656 species in Plantour. The top spot didn't go to roses or cherry blossoms but to a giant Caucasian umbellifer most Japanese have never seen in person. The ranking and its distribution reveal how Japanese readers approach plants through three lenses — eat them, admire them, fear them — and the long tail follows a textbook Zipfian shape.
BotanyData analysisStatisticsWikipediaRead more →
2026-04-12That dandelion at your feet might be a triploid clone — Japan's quiet 'Dandelion War' and an evolutionary cheat code
Everyone knows dandelions. But beneath your feet in Japan, a decades-long war between native and introduced species is playing out — and the invader's weapon is 'three chromosome sets plus mass-producing seeds without pollination', a move that makes evolutionary biologists do a double-take. A plain-language walkthrough you can follow with middle-school biology.
BotanyEvolutionInvasive speciesSeasonalRead more →
2026-04-11I built Plantour — a web service that turns the plants you meet on walks into stories
Stop just looking up a plant's name and moving on. I built a free web service that turns the plants you meet on walks into a story, through five connected entry points: taxonomy, evolution, identification keys, quizzes, and 3D models.
AnnouncementGuideIndie devRead more →