Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface to the Second Edition
- Preface to the First Edition
- Part I Plants and energy
- Part II Plant nutrition
- Part III Growth and development
- 7 Growth: the long and the short of it
- 8 The time of their lives
- 9 A dash of seasoning
- 10 Dormancy: a matter of survival
- 11 Color, fragrance, and flavor
- Part IV Stress, defense, and decline
- Part V Plants and the environment
- Appendix
- Epilogue
- Index
9 - A dash of seasoning
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface to the Second Edition
- Preface to the First Edition
- Part I Plants and energy
- Part II Plant nutrition
- Part III Growth and development
- 7 Growth: the long and the short of it
- 8 The time of their lives
- 9 A dash of seasoning
- 10 Dormancy: a matter of survival
- 11 Color, fragrance, and flavor
- Part IV Stress, defense, and decline
- Part V Plants and the environment
- Appendix
- Epilogue
- Index
Summary
INTRODUCTION
Plants not only use day to night transition to time repeated functions from day to day (see Chapter 8) but also to measure the seasons of the year. Down the centuries humans have used leaf, flower, and fruit production by local plants as signals for seasonal activities such as when to begin planting crops or when to harvest. The agriculturalists Garner and Allard (more about whom shortly) expressed it this way:
One of the characteristic features of plant growth outside the tropics is the marked tendency shown by various species to flower and fruit only at certain times of the year. This behaviour is so constant that certain plants come to be closely identified with each of the seasons, in the same way as the coming and going of migratory birds in spring and fall.
PATTERNS OF GROWTH
Away from the tropics
In temperate climates there is a pattern of plant growth arranged around a yearly period of relative inactivity, winter. The pattern is seen most clearly in annuals, which grow and reproduce during favorable weather and spend winter as seeds.
Other kinds of plants also have distinct patterns of growth. Herbaceous perennials produce annual stem growth which ceases well before winter; deciduous shrubs and trees lose their leaves in the fall but begin preparing for that event well in advance of winter. In all cases of periodic growth, some signal causes the plant to go from rapid growth to near complete shutdown in days or weeks.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Reaching for the SunHow Plants Work, pp. 130 - 146Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011