Imagine that you have a little potted plant at home. But you forgot to water it for a few weeks, and it looks dry and brown. Now imagine how great it would be if this little plant could become green again when you give it some water. This is not only an imagination game. It happens for real in nature. These plants are called resurrection plants. Some resurrection plants can stay dry for a few months and others for even longer periods. Resurrection plants protect themselves from the damage caused by the loss of too much water and come back to life when water is available again. We are learning from the mechanisms that resurrection plants use to stay alive while dry and applying what we learn in other areas of research.
What happens if the plants that you have at home do not get any water for 3 months? Do they become dry and brownish, lose their leaves, and die? If you said yes, you know that drying up and dying is what happens to most plants that do not get watered. But a few plants do not behave that way. If these special plants do not get any water for 3 months, they will become dry and brownish and look dead. However, if they get water again, they will recover their green color and flower. We call these plants resurrection plants. We know of 135 species of flowering plants that are resurrection plants (out of close to 295,400 species of known flowering plants)! [1].
Most resurrection plants grow in tropical regions on the top of rocks, in shallow soil (Figures 1, 2) [2]. Rain falls in these areas only a few months each year and water evaporates very quickly.
Tolerate or Resist Dehydration?
Resurrection plants stay alive because they tolerate the severe dehydration caused by drought. These plants are different from cacti. Cacti do not tolerate severe dehydration, they resist dehydration instead. This is an important difference to keep in mind.
In general, plants survive drought in three ways: avoiding, resisting or tolerating it. Plants that avoid drought have a short life (a few months). In the rainy season, after seed germination new plants grow. In a short time, these new plants flower and produce seeds. Then, the plants die before the dry season starts. Their seeds will stay alive in the soil, waiting for the next rainy season so they can germinate and continue the cycle. Many crops are examples of drought avoiders, such as corn, wheat, and rice.
Plants that resist drought, such as cacti and other succulents have several mechanisms to prevent dehydration. For example, they have structures inside their stems specialized for storing water. Also, their leaves look like spines and can absorb water from fog and dew. This way, drought-resistant plants minimize water loses and stay hydrated in the dry season. However, if the dry season is unusually long, they might not resist and could die.
Resurrection plants tolerate dehydration. They do not try to avoid or resist it. In the dry season, they lose water fast and put life on hold until the rainy season starts again. This means that they stay alive even while dry!
Losing water is part of life for all organisms. Humans, for example, lose water all the time through the skin (as sweat) and also via urine and tears. However, if we lose too much water, we will have a serious problem. If a person who weighs 30 kg loses 4.5 kg because of dehydration, that person's life will be in danger. Most plants are more tolerant to water loss than humans are. For example, a plant weighing 30 kg can lose 12 kg due to dehydration. Resurrection plants are even more extreme. If a resurrection plant could reach the weight of 30 kg (most of them are very small), losing 22.5 kg because of dehydration would not be dangerous at all. This extreme level of dehydration is called desiccation.
A Little Bit of History
Tolerating desiccation was important for the first organisms that left water to live on dry land. These organisms lived on the shores of muddy lakes, with limited water available and plenty of sunlight. Later in the history of life on Earth, plants acquired mechanisms to resist drought and became more sensitive to desiccation. This was an important step in the evolution of plants, because desiccation-tolerant organisms grow slowly. Plants that are drought-resistant instead of desiccation-tolerant grow much faster.
However, plants did not lose desiccation tolerance completely. Many plants still produce desiccation-tolerant seeds. Most seeds acquire desiccation tolerance while they are being formed inside the fruit, when still connected to the mother-plant. When the fruits are ripe, the seeds are dry and alive.
Resurrection plants can make desiccation-tolerant seeds and leaves. Their leaves are tolerant thanks to mechanisms like the ones that seeds use. It appears that resurrection plants borrowed the seed mechanisms for desiccation tolerance and adapted them to also work in leaves [3, 4].
How do Resurrection Plants Deal with Desiccation?
The roots of plants send messages to the leaves when the roots sense that the soil is getting drier and drier. These messages tell the leaves to reduce water loss by closing tiny pores used for gas exchange. Air enters the plant through these pores and water exits the leaves through the pores. Keeping these pores closed can save a lot of water. However, the plants cannot keep the pores closed for too long. They need to exchange gas with the air, because this is how the plants get carbon dioxide. Plants convert carbon dioxide from the air and water from the soil into food, via a process called photosynthesis. After a few days with the pores closed, plants will starve because they cannot make food. Then, their leaves will turn yellow and wilted. If drought persists, their leaves will turn brow and drop off.
Resurrection plants are better at responding to drought. At the beginning of a drought, they will react the same way as non-resurrection plants. Their roots will send messages to the leaves to close the pores. If the drought persists, they will let their leaves dry while carefully folding or curling them. Some leaves will lose their green color and turn brown. Others will accumulate a purple pigment called anthocyanin, which acts as sunscreen. These measures are important to reduce the damaging effects of sunlight.
Sunlight is essential for the life of plants, because plants need it for photosynthesis. Photosynthesis also produces a lot of small molecules called free radicals. Free radicals are necessary for life, but when there are too many of them they can damage the cells. When plants are hydrated, they can keep the amount of free radicals under control. But when they are dehydrated, things can get out of control. To avoid this problem, resurrection plants accumulate molecules that fight the buildup of free radicals. Also, resurrection plants stop photosynthesis. Some resurrection plants do this by breaking up their chloroplasts (where photosynthesis happens). These are the resurrection plants that turn brown when they are drying. When they rehydrate, they will quickly put the chloroplasts back together and start photosynthesis again. Other resurrection plants stop photosynthesis by accumulating anthocyanins (Figure 3). Anthocyanins act as sunscreens and shade the chloroplasts, stopping photosynthesis. When these plants rehydrate, the leaves unfold or uncurl and turn green again (for a resurrection plant coming back to life, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMsyFBcfo6g).
Drying damages the cells. In addition to the damage caused by excess free radicals, some cell components might lose their proper shape and cluster together. Once these clusters form, they do not split up and return to the right shape. To prevent the formation of these clusters, resurrection plants accumulate protective molecules, such as sugars and proteins that prevent formation of clusters. These protective molecules reduce the damage caused by dehydration and contribute to recovery when water is available again.
Cells are made up mainly of water. When this water is removed, the cells shrink. The cell wall is a thin layer that surrounds each cell and separates the inside from the outside. The cell wall is flexible, but it can crack if the cell shrinks too much. Resurrection plants have cell walls that are more flexible than the cell walls of other plants (Figure 3). This way, the cell wall can fold during dehydration without cracking. Another way for the cells of resurrection plants to avoid shrinking too much is to split a cell component called the vacuole into small vacuoles. Vacuoles are storage bubbles found in cells and they contain large amounts of water or food. Usually, plant cells have one large vacuole that can take up more than half of the space in the cell. The vacuole gains and loses water, depending on how much water is available to the plant. Splitting the vacuole helps to keep the cell's structure and reduce the shrinkage caused by the loss of water.
Why Do We Study Resurrection Plants?
Resurrection plants are intriguing plants. They tolerate dehydration to levels that are lethal to most other plants, and they can stay dry for long periods of time. We study resurrection plants to understand how life can continue under extreme conditions, including lack of water. The mechanisms that these plants use to tolerate desiccation are useful in many ways. For example, these mechanisms have been used in the development of vaccines that can be stored for longer periods of time and transported to places without refrigeration. They have inspired ways to extend the time that blood cells and organs can be used for transfusion or transplantation. The mechanisms used by resurrection plants have also been used to improve drought tolerance in crops, in order to minimize the crop losses farmers face during dry spells.
Desiccation tolerance in plants is extremely complex. In recent years, scientists have made substantial progress in understanding it. However, our understanding is still incomplete. We have a long way to go to fill the gaps in our knowledge, put together the main discoveries, and use them to improve the quality of life of millions of people.
Glossary
Resurrection Plants: ↑ Plants that stay alive after being severely dehydrated.
Drought: ↑ Deficit of rainfall over a period of time, resulting in a water shortage. During a drought spell, there is not enough water available in the soil to be absorbed by the plants.
Seed Germination: ↑ Process in which a young plant sprouts and grows from inside a seed.
Desiccation: ↑ Extreme level of water loss.
Photosynthesis: ↑ Process in which green plants convert carbon dioxide (got from the air) and water (got from the soil) into food (sugars) and oxygen (returned to the air).
Conflict of Interest Statement
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
References
[1] ↑ Gaff, D. F., and Oliver, M. 2013. The evolution of desiccation tolerance in angiosperm plants: a rare yet common phenomenon. Funct. Plant Biol. 40:315–28. doi: 10.1071/FP12321
[2] ↑ Farrant, J. M., Cooper, K., Dace, H. J. W., Bentley, J., and Hilgart, A. 2017. “Desiccation tolerance,” in Plant Stress Physiol, ed S. Shabala (Wallingford; Boston, MA: CAB International). p. 217–52.
[3] ↑ Costa, M.-C. D., Cooper, K., Hilhorst, H. W. M., and Farrant, J. M. 2017. Orthodox seeds and resurrection plants: two of a kind? Plant Physiol. 175:589–99. doi: 10.1104/pp.17.00760
[4] ↑ VanBuren, R., Wai, C. M., Zhang, Q., Song, X., Edger, P. P., Bryant, D., et al. 2017. Seed desiccation mechanisms co-opted for vegetative desiccation in the resurrection grass Oropetium thomaeum. Plant Cell. Environ. 40:2292–306. doi: 10.1111/pce.13027
Resurrection plants are intriguing plants.They tolerate dehydration to levels that are lethal to most other plants, and they can stay dry for long periods of time. We study resurrection plants to understand how life can continue under extreme conditions, including lack of water.
Resurrection plants are poikilohytic plant which can survive extreme dehydration for months and years. Examples are Anastatica hierochuntica also known as Rose of Jericho and Asteriscus.
Resurrection plant, also called Rose of Jericho, can survive several years without water by drying up and going dormant. The plant appears dead, but provide water, and within a couple of hours it will begin to revive and turn green.
Easter lilies are white with trumpet-shaped flowers. Traditionally, they are associated with purity and resurrection. This comes from Christian legend, which says that after Jesus' death and resurrection, these flowers were found growing in the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus prayed the night before the crucifixion.
The houseplant Calathea is a symbol of a new beginning. This meaning comes from the English saying 'to turn over a new leaf', which is what the plant does in the dark.
The fragrant flower emerges from an ugly bulb planted in a ground, which acts as a symbol of the resurrection and new life, just as Jesus emerged from the tomb after his brutal death. The Easter lilies act as a reminder to celebrate this joyful season of renewal and rebirth.
Various plants have been proposed as the source of the crown of thorns the New Testament says was placed on Christ's head in the lead-up to the crucifixion, and no-one knows for certain. But the consensus among Christian scholars tends toward Ziziphus Spina-Christi.
In Christian iconography plants appear mainly as attributes on the pictures of Christ or the Virgin Mary. Christological plants are among others the vine, the columbine, the carnation and the flowering cross, which grows out of an acanthus plant surrounded by tendrils.
The average life span seems to lay between 200 and 250 years! The plant belongs to the tropical and subtropical family Gesneriaceae, which thrived in Europe during the warmer periods of the Cenozoic era (the last 66 million years), and later adapted to its current colder climate.
This plant has low severity poison characteristics. Resurrection Lily is a perennial bulb in the Amaryllis family. It is one of the hardiest of this group of lilies.
Resurrection plants are a unique group of species that can survive dehydration to an air-dried state for months, losing most of their cellular water, and quickly resume normal physiological activities after rehydration [1].
The fleur–de–lis means "lily" in French and is a popular symbol of the Resurrection. The three flourishing petals are also known as symbols for the Holy Trinity.
The iris's mythology dates back to Ancient Greece, when the goddess Iris, who personified the rainbow (the Greek word for iris), acted as the link between heaven and earth.
Columbines (Aquilegia spp.) These gorgeous and intricately petaled flowers come in many varieties, but each is known for its contrasting colors—often blue or white in manuscripts—and multiple layers of petals. During the Renaissance, this flower was associated with the Holy Spirit and the sorrows of the Virgin Mary.
Unsurprisingly, Aloe vera plants are usually associated with healing and protection. These plants have been used around the world for thousands of years, and their clear gel is still used today for soothing sunburns and other skin conditions.
Oriental lilies symbolize eternal life, making them the perfect option at religious services commemorating the dead. Gladioli flowers have a tall stem composed of multiple flowers that may grow up to 4 feet tall. The term gladioli derives from the Latin word gladius, which translates to sword.
What Flowers are in the Bible? While the generic or common term 'flower' is mentioned 159 times, there are 3 specific types noted in the scriptures including Rose of Sharon, Rose, and Lily of the Valley.
Resurrection fern, or false rose of Jericho, (S. lepidophylla), is so named because as an apparently lifeless ball it unrolls when the wet season begins. Spreading club moss, or Krauss's spike moss (S. kraussiana), from southern Africa, roots readily along its trailing stems of bright green branches.
Resurrection lilies (L. squamigera) commonly known as surprise lilies are named for their sudden appearance in early fall when they spring forth from the ground without any prior noticeable foliage to announce their presence. Not a true lily, these plants are part of the amaryllis family.
When Jesus reached the spot he looked up at the sycamore tree (actually a sycamore-fig Ficus sycomorus), addressed Zacchaeus by name, and told him to come down, for he intended to visit his house. The crowd was shocked that Jesus, a religious teacher/prophet, would sully himself by being a guest of a sinner.
With regard to the origin and character of the thorns, both tradition and existing remains suggest that they must have come from the bush botanically known as Ziziphus spina-christi, more popularly, the jujube tree.
Ailanthus altissima /eɪˈlænθəs ælˈtɪsɪmə/, commonly known as tree of heaven, ailanthus, varnish tree, or in Chinese as chouchun (Chinese: 臭椿; pinyin: chòuchūn), is a deciduous tree in the family Simaroubaceae. ... Ailanthus altissima.
Archangel Purple Angelonia has masses of beautiful spikes of purple pea-like flowers with a white blotch rising above the foliage from late spring to late summer, which are most effective when planted in groupings. The flowers are excellent for cutting.
The flower of god is Dianthus caryophyllus or Carnation . The name is a fusion of the Greek words "dios" and "anthos." The Greek god Zeus is depicted by "dios," and "anthos" means flower. That's why the Carnation is recognized as “God's Flower.”
You can let this plant dry out completely and it will spring back to life after a few hours in water. It doesn't get more resilient than that! However, the biggest challenge in growing or reviving a Rose of Jericho is watering. While the plant can survive with almost no water if necessary, it can rot if overwatered.
This plant needs fertilizing just like all of your other plants, but in a lower dose. Plant fertilizer is needed to promote good growth and to stay healthy.
It is estimated that resurrection fern could last 100 years without water and still revive after a single exposure to rain. Fun fact: In 1997, resurrection fern was taken into space aboard Space Shuttle Discovery to watch its resurrection in zero gravity!
The most common toxic indoor plants are dieffenbachia (Dumb Cane), philodendron (Philodendron), and aloe vera (Aloe Vera). These plants contain a chemical called calcium oxalate raphides or “raphides,” which can cause mouth, throat, nose, eyes, and skin irritation in humans.
Resurrection plants don't need soil, they are epiphytes. It prefers plenty of light, if it doesn't get enough it will curl up. But don't worry, you can always revive it. It's fine at most average temperatures but the main thing is that you need to ensure that the temperature doesn't fluctuate.
Rinse your Resurrection Plant thoroughly under room temperature water. Place your moist plant in a small bowl and fill it with water, until the roots are submerged. The plant will start to open immediately with a few crackling sounds. Wait at least 5-6 hours for the plant to partially open.
Most often, though, the plant is really dead and will remain brown even if it does expand. (Even dead resurrection plants roll up and unroll under changing humidity.) After it opens, you can take it out of water and let it dry again.
rose of Jericho, also called resurrection plant, either of two species of unrelated plants known for their ability to survive dessication. The true rose of Jericho (Anastatica hierochuntica) is native to western Asia and is the only species of the genus Anastatica of the mustard family (Brassicaceae).
To care for a Resurrection plant you can but don't have to provide potting soil as these plants have no root system. A shallow pot with gravel is sufficient. Provide bright indirect sunlight. 12 hours of light a day is optimal for this plant.
At Easter, the color white symbolizes purity, grace, and, ultimately, the resurrection of Jesus Christ, which is the joyful culmination of the Easter season.
This breathtaking bloom has two meanings: one as a sign of purity and magnificent beauty, and the other as a symbol of rebirth or resurrection. In ancient Greek mythology, the calla lily represented the goddess Hera.
Bear. Generically speaking, the bear is known for hibernating during winter and re-emerging in the spring. As a result, they're regarded as the symbol of resurrection and coming of new life. Another meaning associated with the bear is strength and power due to their sheer size.
Rose. The rose is considered the most beautiful flower in the world, which is why it's called the “queen of the garden.” It's one of the most popular flowers worldwide, and it comes in different sizes and colors. Also, they're very common throughout the world.
The sacred lotus is the foremost symbol of beauty, prosperity and fertility. According to Hinduism, within each human inhabiting the earth is the spirit of the sacred lotus.
Many cultures believe these plants to be sacred because of the spirits that dwell within the plants themselves. Religious and spiritual leaders use these plants, their compounds and mixtures to bring balance to the physical and spiritual world, heal mind and body, and provide for spiritual awakening.
The Holy Spirit is presented with some symbols in the Bible, which depict a reality of truth about the Holy Spirit and throw light on both his nature and mission. The symbols of the Holy Spirit are: Dove, Fire, Oil, Wind and Water.
Various plants have been proposed as the source of the crown of thorns the New Testament says was placed on Christ's head in the lead-up to the crucifixion, and no-one knows for certain. But the consensus among Christian scholars tends toward Ziziphus Spina-Christi.
Resurrection plants are a unique group of species that can survive dehydration to an air-dried state for months, losing most of their cellular water, and quickly resume normal physiological activities after rehydration [1].
rose of Jericho, also called resurrection plant, either of two species of unrelated plants known for their ability to survive dessication. The true rose of Jericho (Anastatica hierochuntica) is native to western Asia and is the only species of the genus Anastatica of the mustard family (Brassicaceae).
Euphorbia milii, the crown of thorns, Christ plant, or Christ thorn, is a species of flowering plant in the spurge family Euphorbiaceae, native to Madagascar. The species name commemorates Baron Milius, once Governor of Réunion, who introduced the species to France in 1821.
With regard to the origin and character of the thorns, both tradition and existing remains suggest that they must have come from the bush botanically known as Ziziphus spina-christi, more popularly, the jujube tree.
Caladiums, with their perfectly heart-shaped leaves in varying colors of red, pink and white are fondly given the names Heart of Jesus and Angel Wing plants. Though their true name is Caladium they are also commonly called Elephant Ears.
Resurrection plants don't need soil, they are epiphytes. It prefers plenty of light, if it doesn't get enough it will curl up. But don't worry, you can always revive it. It's fine at most average temperatures but the main thing is that you need to ensure that the temperature doesn't fluctuate.
Introduction: My name is Lakeisha Bayer VM, I am a brainy, kind, enchanting, healthy, lovely, clean, witty person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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