Resilience - Tomorrow Is A New Day.
One strategy plants employ to escape stress is to rest during the difficult seasons.
Plant Science Concept:
Plants differ in the patterns of their development and the way they grow up (carry out their life cycle from seed to seedling to flower and back to seed). For example, plants may carry out their life cycles in one year (annual plants), in two years (biennial plants), or in three or more years (perennial plants). Annual plants grow tissues made of herbaceous cells (thin walled cells) for the first part of the growing season before investing in the production of flowers, which when pollinated produce fruits and seeds before the plant dies. Their short lives allow them to avoid experiencing winter, for example. Biennials develop the vegetative part of their body the first year and the flowers/fruits the second year before they die. These plants often have a requirement of experiencing some cold temperatures to prompt the developmental shift toward reproduction and flowering. They rest during the winter and return recommitted to see things through to the end of their final life purpose – flowering and seed production. Perennial plants, however, may produce vegetative tissues for many years before ever shifting to reproduction and the initiation of flowers. These are usually plants with both herbaceous and woody tissues to allow both growth and strength, respectively. These perennial plants live through many unfavorable seasons but persist by resting (becoming “quiescent”) during the rough times. They may drop leaves, slow down metabolism, or experience die back of the vegetative parts of their body until favorable conditions return.
Horticultural Applications:
Plants that have evolved to require cold temperatures as a developmental trigger can be induced out of season. For this reason, flowering plants such as tulip, Easter lily or amaryllis can produce flowers on time for related holidays (ie. Christmas or Easter). Many trees will drop leaves during the winter (winter deciduous plants) or during summer drought (drought deciduous plants) and experience a period of slower growth and metabolism. Leaf drop, flower production, amount and timing of irrigation as well as pruning decisions should all be informed by a plants pattern of rest and growth
Related Student Views, Cultural Associations and Folklore:
“Stopping to smell the roses” is a common saying that reminds us to stop and think about the beauty of life. It is important to take small moments of rest in our busy lives to reflect on what we have to be grateful for. While there are no roses in this garden, there are plenty of plants with beautiful flowers present that may still remind us of this expression. Who wouldn’t feel recharged after viewing the striking Dalea frutescens and Fallugia paradoxa blooms?"
~Iza Barrandey, B.S. Sustainable Plant Systems, Class of 2024.
"Goethe's poem "The Metamorphosis of the Plants" embodies many lessons from plants that are also relevant to us. I think one message in the poem reminds me that “tomorrow is a new day”. It begins with words like "sleeping", "closed", "curled", "half-formed", "colorless", and "dry" but shifts to the use of more active words like "gushes","heaving up", and" lifting itself out of the enveloping night" (darkness Reading the poem, gives us an experience of the energetic shift from sleep, to activity encouraging both rest and activity. Although the seed is necessarily dormant for a period of time, after a period of rest, the seed is primed to awakens and grow. These are natural concepts to plants and most of the natural world but I think it is something that humans in the new world need to be reminded of from time to time."
~ Brody Fisher, B.S. Geography, Class of 2024.
The Metamorphosis of the Plants (1790)
by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
This was a power that simply slept in the seed; a prototype
Lay there closed and curled up in itself inside the husk,
Leaf and taproot and seed, as yet half-formed and colorless;
Thus the dry kernel holds and protects the dormant life,
Then it gushes, heaving up, trusting to milder moistures,
Lifts itself all at once out of the enveloping night.
