It’s a beautiful mid-October day, the sun shining brightly above the field. With the soft chirping of a bird and a gentle breeze rustling the leaves, the day feels at peace. Yet, something is particularly unusual. It’s an unfamiliar 73℉, the warmth calling for a t-shirt rather than a light jacket. A coolness is provided only by the shade of a nearby forest, the leaves strangely green for this time of year. As I walk through the field, the grass lightly grazing my hip with each and every step, the strangeness becomes more and more intoxicating. I stop before the plot I’ve seen dozens of times before, certain I wouldn’t have recognized it without the presence of my yellow and orange marker. For the plot appears lopsided, the plants tilted as though they had been trampled by a devastating force. I gaze at the plot, stunned, not only by the mystery of trampling, but by the miraculousness for which the Goldenrods still shine with life.
While miraculous on the surface, the ability of the Goldenrod to survive such a disturbance is not unusual. For as I stand there, marveling at the beauty of its yellow flowers, something even more spectacular is occurring underground. The Goldenrod is undergoing clonal reproduction, the process by which an identical plant is formed. It can do so in one of two ways; either through the development of a seed without fertilization or through the development from an existing vegetative part such as the roots (1). In this case, the Goldenrod will do so through the latter, it’s horizontal stems, called rhizomes, slowly moving laterally underground, searching for a stable and comfortable location for which new plants can be established. Once it finds this location, it will form terminal buds which will blossom into Goldenrods in the spring, once again bringing life and joy to the field (2).
These newly produced Goldenrods will thrive in the wild, as they are particularly fit to survive. Clonal reproduction is quite beneficial, as it allows for good genes and traits to be automatically inherited by the new plant. These desirable traits lead to increased fitness and survival, allowing for the plant species to quickly adapt and flourish in new or disturbed environments (3). Imagine it from the perspective of a commercial grower. In order to make the greatest profit, you need to continuously reproduce a high quality crop. Using clonal reproduction, this can be achieved as the production of an identical plant ensures that the high quality is maintained (4). The grower will make the most profit and the customer will purchase the best product, everybody wins!
As the rhizomes continue to move laterally, they form spacers, able to transfer and store resources (2). This trait is unique to clonal plants and incredibly beneficial. In a way, the rhizomes and other specialized clonal organs serve as piggy banks. In a piggy bank, more and more money can be stored away and saved for the future. While that means that you can buy less items now, you’ll eventually be able to splurge and purchase the car you’ve always dreamed of owning. Similar to money, clonal plants can store resources, such as carbohydrates, to be used at a future time. They store more and more resources, using them when needed the most. While this means that the plants will not be able to reach maximum growth and productivity in the present, they will have a greater chance of surviving in the future (5).
It is this process that the Goldenrods are undergoing, a process facilitated through the structure needed for clonal reproduction, which allows for the Goldenrods to to combat the disturbance that has caused them to tilt. The increased fitness through cloning as well as the sharing of resources explain why their yellow flowers still shine in the sunlight, even in the midst of the trampling and disturbance. For even on a strange mid-October day, where the climate and scenery feels unusual, the Goldenrod continues business as usual, thriving in a world of chaos. It is a gentle reminder that even on the darkest and strangest of days, there is strength, light, and life in this world.
Works Cited
Bhojwani, S and Razdan, M. Plant Tissue Culture. Studies in Plant Science. 5: 767.
Eriksson, Ove. Evolution of Seed Dispersal and Recruitment in Clonal Plants. Oikos. 1992. 63(3): 439-448.
Cornelissen, J et al. Plant traits and ecosystem effects of clonality: a new research agenda. Annals of Botany. 2014. 114(2):369-376.
Chen, Vincent. Vegetative Plant Propagation. Science Learning Hub. 2021.
Suzuki, J. and Stuefer, J. On the ecological and evolutionary significance of storage in clonal plants. Plant Species Biology. 1999. 14(1):11-17.