Last December was the warmest on record for Washington, according to the Washington State Climate Office. Now many plants in our gardens are beginning to bud, even though it’s only February. UW News asked Takato Imaizumi, UW professor of biology, to talk about the mechanisms behind blooming and how warmer winters might impact flowering plants.
For angiosperms — or flowering plants — one of the most important decisions facing them each year is when to flower. It is no trivial undertaking. To flower, they must cease vegetative growth and commit to making those energetically expensive reproductive structures that will bring about the next generation. Knowledge of this process at the cellular level is critical for understanding how plants allocate resources and produce the components we care most about — including the grains, tubers, leaves, nuts…
A team of UW biologists has identified a key mechanism plants use to decide when to release their floral scents to attract pollinators.