Curly Leaf Tips Help Lilies Climb

Biological Strategy

Flame lily

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Image: Brian Gratwicke / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY - Creative Commons Attribution alone

Attach Temporarily

Living systems must sometimes, temporarily, stay in one place, climb or otherwise move around, or hold things together. This entails attaching temporarily with the ability to release, which minimizes energy and material use. Some living systems repeatedly attach, detach, and reattach for an extended time, such as over their lifetimes. Despite being temporary, these attachments must withstand physical and other forces until they have achieved their purpose. Therefore, living systems have adapted attachment mechanisms optimized for the amount of time or number of times they must be used. An example is the gecko, which climbs walls by attaching its toes for less than a second. Other examples include insects that attach their eggs to a leaf until they hatch, and insects whose wings temporarily attach during flight but separate after landing.

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Flowering Plants

Clade Angiosperms (“receptacle seed”): Dandelions, oaks, grasses, cacti, apples

With 416 families containing some 300,000 known species, angiosperms are the most diverse group of plants, and they can be found around the globe in a wide variety of habitats. They are characterized by seeds that grow enclosed in ovaries, which are enclosed in flowers. The floral organs then develop into fruits of myriad kinds and dimensions, from simple seed casings on maples to elaborate fleshy growths like papayas. The oldest flower known from fossils, Montsechia vidalii, appeared during the Jurassic Period 130 million years ago. They are the primary food source for herbivorous animals, which in turn makes them the indirect food source for carnivores as well.

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Long, curling points at the ends of leaves give flame lilies a leg up as they reach for the sun.

“Almost every element of plant anatomy, it seems, can be turned into some kind of climbing device. The cheese plant climbs with its roots, sending them out from its nodes, the places on its stem from which leaves normally spring, and wrapping them around the trunk of its host. European ivy sprouts roots all along the underside of its stems. They are so thin that they can cling to any tiny rugosity. Honeysuckle uses its own stem, winding it around the thicker stem of others. The glory lilies of tropical Africa and Asia have elongated the tips of their leaves into little mobile wires with which they hook themselves on to any support they can find.” (Attenborough 1995:161)

Last Updated August 18, 2016

References

Book

The Private Life of Plants

21/08/1995 | David Attenborough

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