Self-Irrigating Desert Plant Discovered
- By Hadley Leggett
- July 10, 2009 |
- 2:49 pm |
- Categories: Biology
A desert plant has apparently figured out how to water itself.
Ecologists had been puzzling over the desert rhubarb for years: Instead of the tiny, spiky leaves found on most desert plants, this rare rhubarb boasts lush green leaves up to a meter wide. Now scientists from the University of Haifa-Oranim in Israel have discovered that ridges in the plant’s giant leaves actually collect water and channel it down to the plant’s root system, harvesting up to 16 times more water than any other plant in the region.
“It is the first example of a self-irrigating plant,” said plant biologist Gidi Ne’eman, a co-author on the paper published in March in Naturwissenschaften, a German journal of ecology. “This is the only case we know, but in other places in the world there might be additional plants that use the same adaptions.”
The desert rhubarb grows in the mountainous deserts of Israel and Jordan, where there’s only about 75mm of rainfall each year. Even during the rainy season, the region’s light rainfalls often don’t penetrate the rocky soil of the desert. Plants with large leaves and a deep root system, like the desert rhubarb, typically can’t survive in such an arid climate.
But when the researchers measured the plant’s water absorption during a light rain, they discovered that water infiltrated the soil 10 times deeper around the desert rhubarb then in surrounding areas. Upon closer examination, scientists discovered deep grooves around the plant’s veins, which are coated in a waxy cuticle that helps channel water down to the root.
“Even in the slightest rains,” the researchers wrote, “the typical plant harvests more than 4,300 cubic centimeters of water per year and enjoys a water regime of about 427 millimeters per year, equivalent to the water supply in a Mediterranean climate.”
Some scientists say the desert rhubarb isn’t all that, however. “Many plants channel water to their base to be absorbed by the root,” Lindy Brigham, a plant ecologist from the University of Arizona, wrote in an email. “Just look at the way plant leaves are shaped and how they branch from the base in many cases.” The architecture of the desert rhubarb’s leaves is unusual, she said, but not necessarily the only example of this adaptation.
UPDATE – This post was updated Sunday afternoon to include a comment from a scientist who was not involved in the research.
See Also:
- Smarty Plants: Inside the World’s Only Plant-Intelligence Lab
- Peak Water: Aquifers and Rivers Are Running Dry. How Three Regions …
Image: Gidi Ne’eman, University of Haifa–Oranim
Love it or hate it, evolution sure is clever.
Article title is a bit misleading as this plant is not ‘watering’ itself but merely has a structural adaption to help its survival. As far as anatomy & physiology relating to evolution, this is nothing groundbreaking.
@derekris
No, this is intelligent design at work. No, seriously.
Apparently, the Almighty somehow couldn’t make it rain more there, so he just made these plants more efficient at getting water.
See how easy it is?
Love it or hate it, God sure is clever.
Yea, in the “God is Nature” kind of way…not the “a higher ‘being’ thought this through and designed it by himself” kind of way.
But can you make rhubarb pie out of it?
They should plant these things in all the deserts.
You do know that redwood trees catch fog from the um, fog, and as it condenses on the needles, the tree waters itself, right? Drive up Rt. 280 after 5:30 in the summer to see it in action or hit Muir woods. Redwood groves can actually cause rain in the grove as fog comes in.
And mdmadph, oh, obviously. Please submit supporting evidence. Evolution happens. It is endemic in the system.
If the deserts were full of rhubarb, who would like deserts anymore?
>But when the researchers measured the plant’s water absorption during a light rain, they discovered that water infiltrated the soil 10 times deeper around the desert rhubarb then in surrounding areas.
I’m sorry to be the foreign editor, but it’s THAN, not then.
And the copy should read “10 times more deeply” not “10 times deeper.”
Where are your editors people?
koa in hawaii. silversword too come to think of it.
Anyone with even a minimal knowledge of botany knows that there is a multitude have plants that through natural selection have shape that aid in directing water to the root system.
Love it or hate it, God sure is evolution.
what makes this different from all of the other plants which channel water to their stalks via their leaves?
@ crazixnosix Actually that part of the title is completely accurate. It says self irrigating not self watering, the definition of irrigation is “supply with water, as with channels or ditches or streams” which is exactly what the plant does. The only questionable part of the title is if it is the FIRST plant discovered to do so.
Regular old corn funnels rain as well. It’s a pretty basic adaptation.