Glimpse of the Garden: Week 16, Tendrils- Plants in Motion
Beyond flowers, I think plant tendrils
are one of the most beautiful things that develop in the garden.
We've had a lot of spiraling tendrils twisting and turning this week.
It turns out that scientists and botanists have been interested in
this phenomena since Darwin! Just a few years ago, researchers
unlocked some of the mysteries of cucumber tendril spiraling. Their
discoveries are explained in this episode of Science Friday:
Once I learned more about cucumber
tendrils, I noticed the same peculiar winding on my lemon cucumber
vines!
Roger Hangarten is a researcher at
Indiana State University with a particular interest in plant motion
and time-lapse video. Visit his site, Plants in Motion,
for
some other fascinating plant video!
The scientific term for the winding and
bending movement in plants is: nutation. Where are you seeing
nutation in your garden?
No comments:
Post a Comment