Compared to beautiful flowers or delicious fruits, a plant’s cuticle – the layered structure that controls the movement of waxes to the surface of leaves and petals – sounds boring.

The waxy cuticle surface on the outside protects ... which is called the petiole. Different plants from different parts of the world have different adaptations to help them conserve water.

“Cuticle thickness affects dynamics of volatile emission from ... VOCs can’t diffuse out of flower cells quickly enough to prevent internal damage to the plant. In follow-up experiments to find out ...

This discovery challenges long-held assumptions about how plants function. While scientists believed that leaf pores were the primary source of water loss, it appears that the cuticle, a waxy layer, ...