At this season, one of the most important features of trees and shrubs really shines: bark. “In winter, with the leaves gone, it’s more exposed, and we can really see it,” says Kris Bachtell, vice ...

Q. We have a large sycamore tree in our yard. Every summer it sheds its bark over a few weeks’ time. I think as it grows it is growing new bark and losing the old bark. Am I correct? – J.C., Walton, ...

Most people tend to overlook tree bark as rather uninteresting, at best. It's too bad, because bark is a fascinating and often attractive plant "invention," and is actually rather complex in its ...

The two years Princeton senior Joe Kawalec spent studying the natural camouflage of the ubiquitous downy woodpecker oddly enough began and ended the same way — tracing the outlines of birds. In ...