do plants just..die

like flat out, like animals
or is it like a process

hmm

 

Hmmm

Well i honestly don't know

But i think plants die in like a gradual process or something

 

I always wondered that myself. Like especially with old trees ... what determines how long a tree lives? They don't have a heart to give out or anything.

Interesting fact ... I read the oldest living tree is like 230 some years old. I'll try to find the link to that articcle and post it.

 

Also...

We never know when plants actually die!

Does that mean they die gradually, or that we only really notice when they turn all brown, after like a week?

 

good point Lanky ... like when an animal dies ... it just stops being alive all at once ... but a plant slowly withers away. So does it's life cease to exist at a single moment like us? hmm ...

 

you philosophers



actually you got me thinking :-"

 

I wonder if the answer could be found in the almighty wikipedia ...

I'm to lazy right now to look it up though.

I have to leave in a few minutes anyway ... maybe later.

 

running away from the big truths in life, ha?

i shall look it up in my mom's botany books

 

That's awesome ... I have a botany textbook around here somewhere.

I would love to know this answer though ... Micha brought up a really good topic.

 

Nothing really dies, Micha. It's called the circle of life, not the circle of death.

 

As far as the oldest tree thing goes, though, I took a college Botany class, and although I did terrible , I do recall something about the oldest trees (or perhaps plants, I can't really remember) being thousands of years old.

 

Ah, the Redwood of California country..

I'm just finding out that plants technically don't have to die! And that some trees look dead during the winter, but are only resting!

 

there are baobab trees in africa which are over a thousand years old....

 

plants either get diseased, or die of lack of nutrients, sunlight or water

 

Of course Chris would have the answer.

 

wow what a question *cries*

well all i know is they decay

my friend chopped up a plant and put it in her bag and it turned all black and everything.....i could have cried..

 

About the trees in Africa living to be thousands of years old ... that is really amazing. I don't know where I got the 230 years from ... I must have had a bad source. I can't imagine having been around for a thousand years. Imagine the things those plants saw in their lifetimes. That just amazes me.

 

Well I dont actually know this for sure, but this is just my guess.

I think plants die at a certain point(not a slow process), but we dont notice that they have died until they whither away and deteriorate (just like a human body, which rots and deteriorates) The only way we can tell that they died is when they whither away because we have no other way of knowing if they are alive, like humans do. (beating heart, etc)

I wonder.. if someone started to notice a plant dying (or dead, as my theory goes) would they be able to save it in any way?

 

i sometimes wonder this to...in my moms backyard, there are so many different plants, and every year they grow bigger and bigger...except in spring, when some of them wither away and die, but they still grow back next spring, bigger and better. so many some plants never die...or die every spring, only to be reborn bigger and better.

i like heathers thought though...there could be many dead plants out there, but we just dont know yet cause they havent detieriorated away.

 

death can't occur through a gradual process. a being's sickness (like a plant) can increase over time and be the cause for its death, but the death itself occus in a split second.