“THAT spark of dormant life may be hidden and hard to measure, but mother plants will do almost anything to protect it,” writes conservation biologist Thor Hansen, describing the marvels that are seeds.
Ranging from the human-head-sized coconut to the dust-fine contents of the vanilla orchid pod, we see how seeds are far more than lumps of plant tissue, waiting around for watering before they spring into action. They are a plant’s babies, lifeboats of genetic succession cast off into the sea of an uncertain future.
via The Triumph of Seeds: Our huge debt to tiny marvels – life – 19 April 2015 – New Scientist.
via The Triumph of Seeds: Our huge debt to tiny marvels.
‘Let us begin by considering the growth of a living plant. This growth starts from a seed, but the seed contributes little or nothing to the actual material substance of the plant or to the energy needed to make it grow. This latter comes almost entirely from the soil, the water, the air and the sunlight. According to modern theories the seed contains information, in the form of DNA, and this information somehow “directs” the environment to form a corresponding plant.’
from the essential DAVID BOHM edited by lee nichol 2004 Routledge