Tropical forests are heating up. Can

By Erik Stokstad

12 Jun 2025

It was an experiment ahead of its time. Working in his laboratory in Breslau, Prussia, botanist Julius von Sachs placed a large glass bell jar over a flowerpot and heated it from below with alcohol burners. The pioneering 19th century physiologist measured the rising temperature and watched for signs that the plant was in distress, repeating the process with various species. It was the first effort to determine the hottest temperature plants could survive. His finding—50°C—must have seemed unimaginably hot.

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