Kay Lancaster wrote:
....
And then there's the phenomenon of last-gasp flowering -- a tree, for instance, that's been in marginal
conditions for reproduction for years, and is now clearly in decline, will often put out a last crop
of flowers, even if it hasn't flowered for years. That's another poorly understood phenomenon.

if it actually does happen this way it would be
a selective factor in favor of the species
continuing as the area would soon be left empty
for the many seedlings.

i don't see how it would go, but if it is a
soil community issue then i could imagine that
it happens by the plant shutting down the energy
sharing with the soil community and shifting
that back to the branches/flowers. something
that would cause a pulse in the soil community
that would reduce future returns to the tree
from the fungi/bacteria as their population
would decline. might also encourage fruiting
bodies of fungi and different types of reproduction
in the bacteria...


And people think plants never do much interesting, especially over time...

having started early in life growing both
succulents and carnivorous plants i've always
wondered how people could consider them tame
or uninteresting.


songbird