Category Botany

What is the importance of handloom in India?

How do plants transport their seeds for propagation? Do you know that they employ different ways to spread their seeds widely? Let’s look at some of them today

Plants have various ways to ensure that their seeds are spread widely and have a chance to grow. Some employ animals and birds, others wind and water, while still others use their own power to transport their seeds.

 

Dodo tree

The tambalacoque tree grows only in Mauritius and is valued for its timber. In the 17th century, all of a sudden, the tambalacoque lost the ability to grow from seeds. Existing trees continued to live, but not one of the seeds they produced would germinate. By the 1970s, there were only 13 sickly trees left.

An American ecologist. Stanley Temple, observed in 1977 that the tree had stopped growing from seed at about the same time that the DID YOU KNOW? The seeds of a type of tomato plant that grows in the Galapagos Island germinate only when they are eaten by a tortoise and pass through its digestive system! flightless bird of Mauritius, the dodo, became extinct. Temple concluded that the seeds, which had a thick hard covering, would germinate only if they were eaten by the dodo and passed through its digestive system! Without the grinding in the dodo’s gizzard, the seed could not break through the tough exterior and sprout.

He force-fed the seeds to wild turkeys and some of them germinated- the first tambalacoque saplings seen in 300 years!

Launch pad

The squirting cucumber of the Mediterranean fills with a slimy juice as it ripens. Soon, the pressure within increases so much that the cucumber is launched off its stalk like a miniature rocket. The seeds stream out from a hole in its base and land as far away as six metres from the parent plant!

The Brazilian hura tree or monkey’s dinner-bell has a more dramatic way of sending off its seeds. It has a detonating seed container. After it dries out fully, it explodes with a deafening bang, hurling its seeds over a distance of 12 metres! The pods of the broom plant become hot and dry and split open down the middle, catapulting is tiny black seeds in all directions.

Wind and water

Some plants fuave seents so tiny, that they are easily carried away by the wind. Kapok trees auf cotton bushes provide their seeds with a convenient tuft of threads that are long and durable. They catch the wind and float many miles before they land in fertile soil and germinate Dandelion seeds have a tiny parachute and are attached to the top of a stem like a fragile globe. The merest breath of wind can cause millions to take off and sail high into the sky.

The coconut palm on the other hand, sends its seed by sen packed in a fibrous waterproof shell containing water and a supply of rich food in the form of the kernel to nourish it on its long journey.

Winging their way

Many tall trees have winged seeds that travel some distance before falling on the ground to germinate, thus avoiding their shade.

The Anisoptera and Alsomitra are two of the tallest trees in Asia. Their seeds come equipped with a pair of wings. Anisoptera seeds are spear-shaped and spin like the rotors of a helicopter when released. Alsomitra seeds are fitted with paper-thin wings. They descend very slowly and travel over nine metres before falling to the ground.

Critters as couriers

Plants use animals as seed carriers. Some have thomy, stick-on seeds which attach to the fur of the animal as it brushes past. The South African grapple plant has seeds with hooks that embed in the soles of a rhino or elephant’s feet and fall off after the animal has walked some distance.

The best advertisement for most plants are their delicious fruits! if the animal swallows the seed with the fruit, the coating ensures the seed passes out undamaged.

It wouldn’t do if the seed is eaten before it matures, so the plant craftily makes the fruit hard and sour. Once the seed is ready, the fruit tums sweet and aromatic inviting animals to have a feast!

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Who pollinated the world’s first flowers?

The first flowering plants in our world evolved only about 140 million years ago, and plants existed without flowers for a long time before that. And what we think of flowering plants it is hard not to think of pollinators. From insects and birds to animals and even wind and water, there’s a long list of pollinators. But among these who pollinated the first flowers? Researchers may have decoded that today nearly 90% of all plant species bear flowers. Most of these rely heavily on insects for pollination because they are effective due to their small size and high mobility in fact flowers have evolved to attract insects, and in return for pollination, gift them with nectar, pollen etc. Making there is a mutually beneficial relationship. A recent research studied more than 1.100 species of plants, and based on when they evolved, it mapped what pollinates a plant in the present to what might have pollinated the ancestor of that plant in the past it showed that insect pollination has been the most common, happening nearly 86% of the time, pointing to the fact that “the first flowers were most likely pollinated by insects Recent research on fossil insects suggests that a few insects may have actually been “pollinating plants even before the first flowers evolved

While it is easy to imagine bees to be the first to pollinate flowers, it is not so because bees did not evolve until after the first flowers Also, since the first flowers were small, they were most likely pollinated by a tiny creature, perhaps a fly or a beetle or some other insect that has long disappeared.

Did you know?

Pollination by vertebrate animals such as birds and bats, small mammals, and even lizards, has evolved at least 39 times- and reverted to insect pollination at least 26 of those times.
Wind pollination has evolved even more often: 42 instances these plants rarely go back to insect pollination.
Wind pollination evolved more often in open habitats at higher latitudes. Animal pollination is more common in closed-canopy rainforests, near the Equator.

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Do plants have the ability to learn?

Plants do not store information the way we humans do, but they have a way of remembering – they store memories “in sophisticated cellular and molecular signalling networks”. Called ‘somatic memory’, it is stored in the plant’s body. And, this is what a plant passes down to its offspring.

The act of learning is usually attributed to animals. A few studies in the past have shown that plants can learn too. However, a new analysis suggests that plants are capable of more than just learning. What is it? Come, let’s find out.

From floods and heat waves to drought and wildfires, extreme weather events caused due to climate crisis have been affecting natural wildlife habitats the world over. Such changes to their environment have forced animals to change their behaviour too – “altering their hunting and hibernation patterns and moving habitats”. But animals aren’t the only ones adapting to change. As the new research indicates, plants too are forced to “quickly adapt to survive. And, as part of this adaptation, they also “transmit these new traits on to their offspring” – in what is seen as teaching.

It may seem impossible that rooted as they are to the spot, plants are able to adapt, much less teach. But this is exactly what is happening. For instance, plants use the winter season to get ready for flowering in spring, which is the next season. With winters becoming shorter, some plants now have mechanisms in place that allow them “to avoid flowering in periods where they have less chances to reproduce”. Plants do not store information the way we humans do, but they have a way of remembering – they store memories “in sophisticated cellular and molecular signalling networks”. Called ‘somatic memory, it is stored in the plant’s body. And, this is what a plant passes down to its offspring. Researchers say this is not a genetic change, rather it is what they call ‘epigenetics”; “they can change how an organism reads a DNA sequence”. This contributes “to the long-term adaptation of plant species to climate change”.

Did you know?

Epigenetics is the study of how your behaviours and environment can cause changes that affect the way your genes work. Unlike genetic changes, epigenetic changes are reversible. They do not change your DNA sequence, but they can change how your body reads a DNA sequence.

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WHAT ARE PLANT POLLINATORS? WHY DO FLOWERING PLANTS NEED THEM?

Pollination is an essential part of plant reproduction. Pollen from a flower’s anthers (the male part of the plant) rubs or drops onto a pollinator. The pollinator then take this pollen to another flower, where the pollen sticks to the stigma (the female part). The fertilized flower later yields fruit and seeds.Flowering plants have a number of tricks in their armoury to attract pollinators, whether they are birds, insects, reptiles or mammals. Let’s look at some of the pollinators.

Hummingbirds and Sunbirds

Flowers that hummingbirds and sunbirds favour are day-blooming, tube-shaped. bright orange or red in colour and have little fragrance. Their nectar is 26 per cent sugar, double the amount in a soft drink. The shape forces the bird to delve deep, brushing its head against the stamens which drop their load of pollen.

Sunbirds like to perch while feeding so their favourite plants provide them a stalk to sit on. The rats tail plant of South Africa has a vertical one that provides a convenient foothold for the malachite sunbird while it samples the nectar. Scientists have found that plants with perches have double the number of sunbirds visiting them.

Lizards

On tiny oceanic islands, lizards pollinate the flowers! The blue-tailed gecko is partial to the nectar of the Trochetia flower on the island of Mauritius. It prefers the flowers that grow underneath the pandanus shrub since it shields the lizard from birds of prey. Trochetia plants have over time, evolved to grow in the shelter of the pandanus!

Moths and Butterflies

Hawk moths visit flowers that bloom at night or at dawn or dusk, times at which they are active. The flowers are generally large, showy, and sweetly fragrant. are white in colour and have lots of nectar.

Flowers visited by day-flying moths are smaller, have less nectar and grow in heads rather than individually.

Butterfly-pollinated flowers are similar to the hawk moth-pollinated ones and have petals that provide a landing area. Their nectar is hidden inside narrow tubes which are a perfect fit for a butterfly’s proboscis.

Bees and Wasps

Beers are of course, the supreme pollinators, but wasps are not far behind. Some fussy plants demand special attention. Tomato flowers have anthers that will only release pollen if they are vibrated briskly by the whirring wings of the bumblebee! This is called buzz pollination Honeybees are not so good at buzzing!

Fig trees display the ultimate in finicky behaviour. Each species of fig depenits on its own kind of wasp for pollination. A figs flower grow inside the fruit. The female wasp makes a small hole and squeezes inside. Once in, she feeds on the nectar and lays her eggs. When the eggs hatch the new generation of wasps fly to another fig tree. pollinating it in the process.

Bats

Flowers pollinated by bats are flamboyant and white or light-coloured since their visitors are nocturnal like the moths. They are generally bell-shaped and strong smelling. Their pollen grains are bigger and they produce nectar throughout the night Bats pollinate more than 300 species of fruit bearing plants including mangoes, bananas and guavas. Some species of bats sport proboscis-like tongues and have the ability to hover. They also use echolocation to find certain types of flowers.

Lemurs

The world’s largest known pollinator is the ruffed lemur of Madagascar. It has dexterous fingers that can peel open the hard coating on the flower of the travellers palm. Once open. the lemur pushes its long snout into it to lap up the nectar. The lemurs depend on these flowers when fruit is scarce. Scientists think the palm’s flowers evolved to be pllinatd only by this species of lemur.

Flies

The smelliest flowers around have a corpse-like smell of decay that is immensely attractive to flies. Two of the largest flowers in the world, the rafflesia and the titan arum are pollinated by flies. The paw-paw, a fruit native to the US… depends on flies for pollination Farmers hang rotten meat from the tree to draw in even more of them.

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CAN PLANTS GROW ON LUNAR SOIL?

Have you ever looked up at our moon and wondered if it was possible to grow plants there? According to a new study published in Communications Biology, the answer is maybe. Success in growing a plant on the moon, it seems, depends on where exactly the planting is done.

The research, performed by a team of two horticulturists and one geologist from the University of Florida, showed for the first time that plants could be grown in lunar soil. The results are an important step towards humanity’s ambitions of making long-term stays on the moon possible.

Third-time lucky

The research has been in the making for a long time. This was the third time that these scientists had applied to NASA over the last 11 years for samples of soil brought back to the Earth by any or all of the six Apollo landing missions. Having been declined on the first two instances, the researchers got their wish this time around.

Probably because NASA themselves are planning longer excursions to our natural satellite, they parted with 12 grams of soil about 18 months ago. This soil was gathered by the crews of Apollos 11, 12, and 17 and were part of just 382 kg of lunar soil and rocks brought back during the Apollo missions.

The researchers chose the thale cress plant, both because of its hardiness and the fact that its genome has been fully sequenced. The planting was done in plastic plates with wells that are usually used to grow cell cultures. There were four wells apiece for each of the three Apollo missions, and they got a gram of soil each. Four more wells were used as a control, with simulated lunar soil prepared using earthly materials.

To their astonishment, researchers noticed that the seeds sprouted after two days. Regardless of whether they were growing in a lunar sample or in the control, they looked the same for the first six days. Differences began to emerge after that as the plants grown in lunar soil showed stress, developed slowly, and ended up being stunted.

Geological age factor

There were also differences within the lunar samples as the Apollo 11 plans grew most poorly, followed by Apollo 12 and then Apollo 17. The researchers concluded that the reason for this has to do with the age of the soil. While the samples brought back by Apollo 11 are older geologically than those brought back by Apollo 12, the samples from Apollo 17 are most recent in geological time.

The results from this research are very important as it helps us develop food sources for future astronauts who might live and operate in deep space for extended durations. Such plant growth research could also unlock innovations in agriculture that might allow us to grow plants under stressful conditions in places where food is scarce here on Earth.

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CAN PLANTS GLOW IN THE DARK?

Scientists at MIT are developing light-emitting plants with particles that absorb light, store some of it, and emit it gradually – a big step towards plant-based lighting.

‘Plant nanobionics’ involves embedding nanoparticles into plants to give them new abilities. Past work by MIT has created plants that send electrical signals when they need water, spinach that detects explosives, and watercress that glows in the dark.

The team used nanoparticles made of strontium aluminate as the phosphor, to absorb visible or ultraviolet light and then release it as a phosphorescent glow over time. The nanoparticles were coated with silica to protect the plants from damage. Several thousand times smaller than the width of human hair, the nanoparticles were infused into the plants through their stomata (small breathing pores on the surfaces of leaves) and accumulated in a spongy layer called the mesophyll. After about 10 seconds of LED exposure, the plants could emit light for about an hour, with the glow brightest for the first five minutes and then gradually 25 cm diminishing. The plants can be continually recharged for at least two weeks.

The goal is to develop glowing plants that could be used to passively light up streets or other public areas, reducing the energy consumption needed for street lights.

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WHAT IS PLANTONE SMART MINI INDOOR GARDEN DEVICE?

The Plantone Smart Mini Indoor Garden provides planting, lighting and watering in a single system that allows you to grow five different species of plants at a single time. You never have to worry about forgetting to water, overwatering, or moving your plants to get more light. Every plant requires a different amount of water, so Plantone waters each plant according to its requirements. The water tank below the pots can be filled to the top for upto 60 days of water. Using pressurized technology, the pots siphon water from the tank automatically. The retractable tower’s LEDs produce a balance of cool and warm light and turn off when natural light is detected. Control the intensity of the light and switch between different light cycles with the press of a button. The tower’s sensor package monitors temperature, humidity, light level and air quality. It has WiFi and Bluetooth as well as an internal real time clock to keep time for your custom light schedules. Plantone’s app lets you control watering and lighting remotely using your smartphone. The device is recyclable and uses repurposed materials.

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What is the oldest fossil flowering plant?

Researchers from Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (NIGPAS), have uncovered the earliest example of a flower bud in a 164 million-year-old plant fossil in China.

The fossil is 1.7 inches long and 0.8 inches wide. It contains a stem, a leafy branch, a bulbous fruit and a tiny flower bud around 3 sq mm in size. The researchers have named the new species Florigerminis jurassica.

There are two main types of plants: flowering plants (angiosperms) and non-flowering plants (gymnosperms). The flower bud and fruit in the fossil are clear indicators that F. jurassica was an angiosperm, the dominant plant type during the Jurassic period. Until now, fossil evidence showed that angiosperms did not arise until the Cretaceous period, between 66 million and 145 million years ago. The discovery firmly pushes back the emergence of flowering plants into the Jurassic period, between 145 million and 201 million years ago.

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Do Trees Die of Old Age?

While humans and animals stop producing new tissues over time – which is part of the ageing process – there’s no evidence to prove that this happens in trees. Due to this regenerative aspect, scientists believe trees actually have the ability to live indefinitely. But before that can happen, several external factors such as climate variation, storms, animal or insect attack, logging. accidents such as lightning, etc. cost them dearly. Despite these, some trees have managed to live for thousands of years. Among them is the Great Basin bristlecone pine tree in California, the U.S., which has celebrated about 5,000 birthdays!

When animals senesce, or grow older, their cells may cease to divide, or the division process may grow increasingly sloppy, leading to deleterious mistakes. On the outside, this aging process shows through cognitive decline, or wrinkles in humans. One animal in particular, the hydra, actually doesn’t seem to senesce. For all intents and purposes, it is biologically immortal.

While it’s not precisely known whether or not individual trees are biologically immortal in the same fashion, they definitely don’t grow old the same way animals do. Trees grow indeterminately, meaning that with the right conditions, they can grow and grow and grow, with only the laws of physics limiting their height. (There’s a certain point where a tree cannot send enough water from the roots to the top layer of leaves, preventing adequate photosynthesis.) Amazingly, once they hit that maximum height, instead of growing taller, they grow wider! And they do so at an ever-increasing rate! That’s right, trees actually grow faster as they age. Scientists reported this amazing finding in the journal Nature earlier this year, after examining the growth of over 700,000 trees worldwide.

While it’s not yet known precisely why trees grow faster as they age, the secret to their perpetual growth has already been revealed. Most plant cells are perpetually embryonic, meaning they can change into another cell type at any time.

Credit : Real Clear Science

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What is diamond planet?

Imagine walking on a planet that is full of diamond. Dubbed 55 Cancri e, an exoplanet twice the size of Earth, is composed of carbon mostly in the form of graphite and diamond. At least a third of the planet’s mass is likely diamond as a result of the temperatures and pressures in the planet’s interior. Further observations are necessary to confirm the nature of the planet. It orbits a Sun-like hot star called 55 Cancri A. Planets like this are vastly different from our Earth, which has relatively less carbon.

Astronomers discovered the planet in 2004 after looking at the spectrum of its parent star, 55 Cancri A, one of two stars in a binary system about 40 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cancer. There are at least four other planets in the same system, mostly discovered before 55 Cancri e. The team (led by the University of Texas at Austin’s Barbara McArthur) discovered subtle tugs on the parent star that could be explained by the presence of yet another planet. While the planet’s existence was challenged by a second research team in 2005, a separate team in 2006 confirmed it. 

Astronomers initially thought 55 Cancri e (abbreviated 55 Cnc e) had an orbital period of 2.8 days, but measurements in 2011 showed that the planet is much closer to its parent star. Observations with Canada’s MOST (Microvariability & Oscillations of STars) space telescope demonstrated an orbital period of less than 18 hours. Researchers estimated the surface temperature of 55 Cancri e could be as high as 4,892 F (2,700 C). 

Follow-up observations with the Spitzer Space Telescope in 2012 showed that 55 Cancri e is much weirder than anticipated. While original estimates said the planet was dense and rocky, Spitzer suggested the planet includes a healthy proportion of light elements and compounds (such as water). However, the planet’s high surface temperatures contribute to a “supercritical” fluid state, the researchers said, meaning that the gases are in a liquid-like state. 

Credit : Space.com

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WHEN DID PLANTS START TO GROW ON LAND?

The first land plants appeared during the Silurian period, around 440 million years ago. These simple plants reproduced by releasing spores. Plants produced oxygen and provided food for the first land animals – amphibians. Amphibians first developed in the Devonian period, 420 million years ago, from fish whose fins evolved into limbs.

Botanists now believe that plants evolved from the algae; the development of the plant kingdom may have resulted from evolutionary changes that occurred when photosynthetic multicellular organisms invaded the continents. The earliest fossil evidence for land plants consists of isolated spores, tracheid-like tubes, and sheets of cells found in Ordovician rocks. The abundance and diversity of these fossils increase into the Silurian Period (about 443.8 million to 419.2 million years ago), where the first macroscopic (megafossil) evidence for land plants has been found. These megafossils consist of slender forking axes that are only a few centimetres long. Some of the axes terminate in sporangia that bear trilete spores (i.e., spores that divide meiotically to form a tetrad). Because a trilete mark indicates that the spores are the product of meiosis, the fertile axes may be interpreted as the sporophyte phase of the life cycle.

Fossils of this type could represent either vascular plants or bryophytes. Another possibility is that they are neither but include ancestors of vascular plants, bryophytes, or both. The earliest fossils also include at least one or more additional plant groups that became extinct early in the colonization of the land and therefore have no living descendants. By the early Devonian Period (about 419.2 million to 393.3 million years ago), some of the fossils that consist of forking axes with terminal sporangia also produced a central strand of tracheids, the specialized water-conducting cells of the xylem. Tracheids are a diagnostic feature of vascular plants and are the basis for the division name, Tracheophyta.

Credit: Britannica

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