AP Photo/Dean Fosdick

Gardeners are fond of purchasing promising plant specimens while traveling abroad - a few seed packets here, some live stem cuttings there. But many are surprised when those prized collectibles are weeded out and dumped upon their return.   Full Story

Ever since the concept of designating the wonders of the world became a reality in the fifth century B.C., making such a list has no doubt been controversial and arbitrary.   Full Story

Carolyn Cole/The Los Angeles Times

BOZEMAN, Mont. - My travels have taken me to many striking landscapes: the tangled marshes of South Carolina's barrier islands, the redrock canyons of southwest Utah, a bare expanse of Nevada desert framed by a purple sunset.   Full Story