Almost everyone knowswhat date comes up next Monday. The start of 2024 will be announced onbillboards, in newspapers, broadcast on TV and radio, and will pop-up oncomputers and mobile phones. Having a shared calendar is immensely valuable forplanning our lives; how did humans ever manage without it?
We know that many cultures followed seasonal changes of weather and the stars, but it turns out that there are cultures who identified important times of year by other means. Balick and Plunkett (2018) did anthropological studies on how the South Pacific islanders of Vanatua set important times by observing the plants around them. For example, the flowering of Melanthera biflora (yellow flower in cover picture) indicated that it was time to hunt for sea turtles; when the pinkflowers of Urena lobata appeared, they knew that no more cyclones were expected that year.
But how do the plants forecastturtle movements? Well all they can do is follow the same cues of nature. Plantgrowth is influenced by temperature, water availability and light. Flowering isoften controlled by daylength (see Leaf 38 Let Chrysanthemums Sleep https://lnkd.in/e3KB9dPR); consequently, anavenue trees will typically blossom together. Plant physiologists know thatflowering is an expression of molecular changes inside the plant, with various genesactivated and deactivated to change the internal chemistry (metabolism) of theplant. Those of us interested in using plants in biomedicines, food supplementsand cosmetics need to be aware that environmentally signalled changes canprofoundly affect the phytochemicals we are interested in, not just thoseassociated with flowering. Every flower has its season, and every medicinalplant has its optimal harvest time.
I did not yet mention the white flower in the cover image, Galanthus nivalis, the snowdrop. For thoseof you born in January it is your birth flower. It starts appearing in thenorthern hemisphere every year right about now.
Happy 2024. May it be a year of joy, good health and peace.
Further reading
🗓Balick MJ & Plunkett GM (2018) “Plants as Calendars”, Science Talk (NY Botanical Gardens) March 13, 2018, https://www.nybg.org/blogs/science-talk/2018/03/plants-as-calendars/
🗓Yuan HY et al (2021). Genetic and geneexpression analysis of flowering time regulation by light quality in lentil.Annals of botany, 128(4), 481–496. https://doi.org/10.1093/aob/mcab083
