Flowers

[AverageWhiteBloke]

Never gets a mention really, a lot of emphasis in the board is put on bobbling and growth you never here or see pics of plants flowering. Is flowering the pinnacle of a healthy plant or just one of them things? I myself have had an amazon sword flower with like a white daisy and a nymphea stellata with a pink flower. I took pictures of them edited with the names of my dry ferts and printed them off as labels for my powder containers many moons ago.

Anybody else had stuff flowering or know what its actually means in the plants life?

 

[sWozzAres]

As far as I understand, flowering is not well understood by science. Take a look at the florigen hypothesis

http://welonsell.info/content/18/8/1783.full

and photoperiodism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photoperiodism

Essentially plants detect the season by the duration of darkness. The whole subject is quite fascinating and it would be interesting to correlate this to a planted tank where lighting duration doesn't typically vary in any particular tank, but can vary from tank to tank.

 

[darren636]

plant flowering stems from the need to reproduce. Many factors induce flowering- dire environmental conditions included. If living conditions are optimal, flowering can decrease in many plants.

 

[AverageWhiteBloke]

Many factors induce flowering- dire environmental conditions

Would probably explain people not showing off their flower pics I have never had any flowering going on while I have been seriously trying to grow plants. Both occasions for me was when I had a less than optimum set up as far as todays thinking goes. My first crack at planted about 15 or so years ago involved an open top tank with a 125watt mercury vapour bulb above. Dennerle substrate with a heating cable under it and initially the full range of dennerle ferts. The ferts were soon changed to powders from the US when I realised the cost .Co2 was via an in tank reactor connected to the outflow of a no where near enough output canister, I think it was a Dupla kit if I remember right. I seemed to have a lot of success with plants then and thought flowering was part of that success but looks like maybe not now

There may be clues there on my current system, even though my co2 delivery, circulation and dosing is far better I just don't get the same results as that tank back then so maybe a nutrient rich substrate is a major player.

 

[sWozzAres]

ferts, co2 and light quality aren't factors that induce flowering, it's simply down to duration of darkness

assuming of course that the plants are healthy and they have everything they need to produce a flower

I suspect tank lighting period isn't solely responsible for the plants perception of darkness though, ambient daylight will probably be a factor even if the lights are off, I only say this because I had plants that for years would consistently flower the same time each year and this tank, over that time period was quite variable in terms of co2/ferts and lighting period

 

[AverageWhiteBloke]

So for instance I'm assuming too much here, is the flowering any part of the reproduction cycle of the plant? In the case of Amazon Swords which create plantlets from the main stem what is the point of flowering? Does an sword need to pollonate another?

 

[sWozzAres]

yes it's part of the reproductive cycle, some plants fertilize themselves, others dont need fertilization

see angiosperms

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angiosperm

 

[sparkyweasel]

What is point of flowering for a plant that produces plantlets?
Plantlets and runners are limited to growing quite close to the parent plant. Flowering produces seeds, which can be dispersed (by water, wind, animals etc) to colonise new areas. Also plantlets and plants from runners (vegetative reproduction) are genetically identical to their parent, whereas plants from seeds carry genetic material from both the mother (providing the seed) and the father plant (providing the pollen). This diversity has advantages for the species in the long term. Plants of some species can pollinate their own seeds if there is no other pollen available, some species cannot.

 

[darren636]

plantlets and self cloning render the plant and maybe the whole species in (possible) danger. that is why plants flower too, in order to further mix up the genome.

 

[AverageWhiteBloke]

And I guess so plants can move to a more suitable location on the wind and to spread further a field. So is a flowering plant in good health or is that too general? In terrestrial plants flowering would normally be associated with the plant being well looked after and in good health.

 

[sWozzAres]

I suspect too general. I doubt the plant needs to be in good health, just healthy enough. It might need to produce specific compounds for the flower so there would be nutrient requirements and this could also affect the quality of the flower. I seemed to get a GH crash when my plants flowered but this is anecdotal.

Photoperiodism is key, at the right time they will try to flower, it's a genetic not conscious process so they can't stop it. You can draw a parallel with humans who get the urge to mate more so in the summer (due to light), ensuring the offspring are produced in the spring when (historically) food is plenty, giving more chance of survival and higher chance of passing on the "mate in the summer" genes. However, the quality of your sperm will be affected by your diet/health which effects the likelyhood on conception and the quality of the offspring. Some of the most impoverished places on the planet might have a high mortality rates but they can still survive through hard times.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

So is a flowering plant in good health or is that too general? In terrestrial plants flowering would normally be associated with the plant being well looked after and in good health.

I think generally this is the same for most aquatics/emergents.

I think a lot of it it do with what types of plant, all plants aren't going to flower under water (even Vallisneria has male flowers which float after they have been released) as pollen and water isn't a good mix.

If you let plants like Hygrophila corymbosa, Heteranthera zosterifolia, Cabomba spp. or Utricularia gibba grow in a tangled mass at the water surface they will then send up aerial stems that will flower. In Cabomba , the leaf morphology will change to form small "pads" before flowering is initiated.

The same applies to Cryptocoryne and Echinodorus spp., if you have large healthy submerged plants, and then drop the water level, this will initiate flower production. You can also do this with Nymphaea spp., allow them to form floating pads and they will flower. If you have a look at "Ghostsword" or "Schruz's" emersed threads, you will see a lot of aquatics are really emergent or totally terrestrial marsh plants and flowering is only suppressed by being submerged.

For a lot of perennial plants, they will grow vegetatively all the time resources are available, and in Echinodorus if the plant is ready to flower and still submerged the flowering scape will have "plantlets", rather than flowers. A lot of other plants do this. I've got an orchid, Dendrobium kingianum, in which you can manipulate flower or pseudobulb ("keiki") production by changing the watering regime. The last variable is light, a lot of plants will flower if you expose them to higher light levels. Limnobium laevigatum is a really good example of this, natural day-light levels of light = flowers.

Annual plants are slightly different, they are programmed to flower, and flower production is usually triggered by lack of resources. These plants only way of reproduction is seed formation, and in really nutrient starved conditions minute plants will flower and die, producing only one or two seeds. In more nutrient rich conditions a genetically similar plant may be capable of producing 10,000's of seeds. Have a look at "Rapid Cycling Brassica" for details. I can't think of any obligate annuals as aquarium plants, but there may be some.

cheers Darrel

 

[AverageWhiteBloke]

Very interesting stuff just thought I'd drop in a pic off my container. Only pic I have left of the stellata.