Resurrection Plants

Abstract

AGE: 12 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 fewmonths 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.