New Phytologist publishes excellent, novel, rigorous and timely research and scholarship in plant science and its applications. Falling within four sections – Physiology & Development, Environment, Interaction and Evolution – articles cover topics that range from intracellular processes through to global environmental change. Cross-disciplinary approaches are particularly encouraged but for guidance the journal is organized as below. We recognize that techniques from molecular and cell biology, and functional genomics through to modelling and system-based approaches will be applied across the whole spectrum of plant science: Physiology & Development: intra/inter-cellular signalling, long-distance signalling, physiology, development, eco-devo – phenotypic plasticity, transport, biochemistry. Environment: global change and Earth system functioning, environmental stress, ecophysiology, plant–soil interactions, heavy metals. Interaction: plant–biotic interactions (including viruses, prokaryotes, oomycetes, fungi/mycorrhizas, viruses, nematodes and insects), symbionts, endophytes, pathogens, plant microbiome, fungal genomics, multitrophic systems, plant–microbe–soil interactions. Evolution: molecular evolution, population or quantitative genetics, mating systems, phylogenetics, speciation, plant–enemy coevolution, evo–devo.