Plant Moms

Mother knows best… but does that apply to plants as well? It’s easy to imagine plants being cold, distant mothers - just scattering seeds to the wind. But mother plants are like any other mother, they do their best to give their children the best start in life, despite their stationary disposition. 

Some plants make babies that are still attached to the mother’s root system. Hen and chicks plants, along with some cacti and other succulents that live in drought prone environments have adopted this strategy. This allows their babies to get accustomed to long dry spells followed by pulses of rain before they have to separate and survive on their own. They can learn to weather the extremes of their environment while still feeding from the mother’s root system.

An extensive, decades long study by Suzanne Simard exposed how mother trees can recognize their offspring in the forest, even if they are miles away. The mother trees in her experiments were able to recognize their seedlings through the fungal networks that surround their roots. Through mycelium, they were able to pass nutrients to their children, and send messages about potential danger. Simard's Ted Talk on How Trees Talk to Each Other is a great introduction into how forest communities work and communicate. 

Other plants have complex ways of creating their seeds. Rockcress (Arabidopsis), a relative of cabbage, will take into account the temperature in its environment for weeks before it even starts making a seed. If the rockcress is situated in cooler climates, the coating on the seed will have extra protein and be thicker and harder for the seed to break through. If the weather is warmer during the months leading up to seed dispersal, the coating will be thinner, thus allowing the seed to germinate sooner. (1)  

Rockcress is an expert at timing their seeds’ germination, while the giant sequoia focuses on timing the release of their seeds. They produces cones that are sealed shut with resin, which generally take about two years to mature, open, and drop seeds. However, a passing fire can melt this resin and open up the cone so the seeds drop immediately. It may seem counterintuitive to drop seeds on scorched land, but a fire reduces competition from other plants, clears up the canopy to allow more sunlight to hit the ground, and most importantly, restores essential nutrients to the soil. This gives their offspring the most bountiful infancy they could have.

Plant may live in ways that are strange to us, but the instincts of motherhood are something we share.