It’s the first day of spring. That means that flowers will soon bloom, and in dessert environments like the one that I live in, it means that leaves will once again bloom.
This morning, I noticed something VERY particular. An ocotillo tree in my parents’ front yard is now growing green leaves. The house provides shade for most of the plant but in the morning hours, the tips of the ocotillo plant are exposed to sunlight. Then, later in the day, these same points and the rest of the plant are exposed to the afternoon sun.
The ocotillo is only growing leaves in the parts that receive sunlight from morning to afternoon! I guess is that it is for efficiency. Why have leaves where there is less sun? So it will probably populate the tips first and then grow leaves as it needs them.
Why do I think this?
Photosynthesis occurs in leaves. It is in the leaves’ stoma that CO2 is taken up from the air and O2 is released into the air so photosynthesis can occur. Water is lost during this gas exchange. Plants (especially those from that live in the desert) don’t like to lose water.
I haven’t researched WHY this happens so the above inference could be completely wrong. I just thought is was a very neat phenomena.
In these pictures, notices how the tops are green and the bottoms are fairly bare (except for the thorns which EVERY plant in the Sonoran desert has).
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You have really great taste on catch article titles, even when you are not interested in this topic you push to read it
I would appreciate more visual materials, to make your blog more attractive, but your writing style really compensates it. But there is always place for improvement