![]() ![]() Annual plants in deserts may use the weedy ephemeral strategy to survive in the desert environment. Desert ephemerals This normally bare desert in Namaqualand, Goegap Nature Reserve in South Africa has a proliferation of flowers and desert ephemerals during the brief spring wet seasonÄesert ephemerals, such as Arabidopsis thaliana, are plants which are adapted to take advantage of the very short favourable seasons in deserts. They comprise the spring geophytes (tuberous, bulbous and rhizomous). In the herb layer of beech forest and hornbeam-sessile oak forest, tuberous, bulbous and rhizomous plants are abundant. Examples include: spring beauties, trilliums, harbinger of spring and the genus of Dicentra particularly D. This strategy is very common in herbaceous communities of deciduous forests as it allows small herbaceous plants to take advantage of the high levels of sunlight reaching the forest floor prior to the formation of a canopy by woody plants. roots, rhizomes, and bulbs) for the remainder of the year. The leaves often wither leaving only underground structures (i.e. stems, leaves, and flowers) of the plant early each spring and then quickly bloom, and produce seed. Spring ephemerals are perennial woodland wildflowers which develop aerial parts (i.e. An evergreen plant could be considered the opposite of an ephemeral plant. In each case, the species has a life cycle timed to exploit a short period when resources are freely available. In areas subjected to recurring human disturbance, such as plowing, weedy ephemerals are very short-lived plants whose entire life cycle takes less than a growing season. Mud-flat ephemerals take advantage of short periods of low water. Desert ephemerals are plants which are adapted to take advantage of the short wet periods in arid climates. The first, spring ephemeral, refers to perennial plants that emerge quickly in the spring and die back to their underground parts after a short growth and reproduction phase. A term used for plants with short life cycle Trillium grandiflorum in the foreground and the smaller Thalictrum thalictroides in the background are both spring ephemerals of North American deciduous forestsĪn ephemeral plant is a plant with a very short life cycle or very short period of active growth, often one that grows only during brief periods when conditions are favorable. ![]()
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