Terrestrial plants began making a permanent home on land from the sea at least 420 million years ago. Updated methodologies in genetic data research has determined this number could be as old as 500 million years ago. With permanent roots in soil and no way of relocating if conditions aren’t favorable, plants have evolved some interesting ways of dealing with freezing temperatures, drought, insect attack — all while still finding ways to reproduce. The following are some of their most clever procreation tactics. User Upload Caption: The giant Amazon water lily’s flowers (Victoria amazonica) live for just two days, but during that time it imprisons its pollinators and changes sex to ensure proliferation of the species.
– Original Source: HANDOUT
The giant Amazon water lily’s flowers (Victoria amazonica) live for just two days, but during that time it imprisons its pollinators and changes sex to ensure proliferation of the species. On the first evening that the flower blooms it is female and white. The flower releases a fragrance that smells like pineapple, and it also releases heat, both of which attract beetles into the center. The bloom can be as much as 50 degrees Fahrenheit more than the surrounding air temperature! Once the beetles are lured in, the flower closes in the morning, trapping the beetles inside. The flower then becomes male, turns pink, and covers the trapped beetles in pollen. Once released the insects deliver the pollen to the stigma of another female flower.
Holcoglossum amesianum is an amazing self-pollinating orchid native to China. Instead of relying on wind, insects, or mammals to distribute pollen, this clever orchid takes matters into its own hands. It has evolved the ability to rotate its pollen-filled anther completely backward and insert it into the female part of the plant, called the stigma. It is the only known flower capable of this feat. This tactic is thought to have evolved because the orchids flower from February to April in the dry and windless area of Yunnan province in China.
In 2011, an observant handyman in rural northeast Brazil discovered a new species in the Spigelia genus. Spigelia genuflexa, a distant cousin of the North American Indian pink, bends its seed down to the ground and pushes through the soil to plant them, a rare phenomenon known as geocarpy. It is thought that because this plant is short-lived and exists in small fragments of suitable habitat in coastal Brazil, this adaptation allows the mother plant to be successful by depositing seed next to herself rather than trying to disperse the seed into potentially unsuitable environments.
User Upload Caption: Plants like Ecballium elaterium, commonly known as the squirting cucumber, employ a method known as ballistic seed dispersal to spread seed to other areas.
– Original Source: HANDOUT
Some plants however employ a tactic quite the opposite of the diminutive Spigelia. Plants like Ecballium elaterium, commonly known as the squirting cucumber, employ a method known as ballistic seed dispersal to spread seed to other areas. As the fruit of this plant reaches maturity, the surrounding tissue begins to break down creating mucilaginous liquid. This liquid begins building immense internal pressure inside the fruit, which has been measured up to 27 times higher than atmospheric air pressure at sea level. Once the fruit can no longer contain the seed, it bursts launching all the seed inside up to 20 feet away from the parent plant.
Wild Green Yonder is a recurring monthly feature from the staff of the Norfolk Botanical Garden. Michelle Baudanza is the curator of herbaceous plants.
