Resurrected Roots

Help! It’s the attack of the zombie… leaves?!

This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science.

Tree ferns were once dinosaur food, but guess which scaley beasts this flora outlasted. How?

James Dalling and colleagues from the University of Illinois were collecting tree ferns. They saw rot on some leaves—LEAVES which had sprouted ROOTS?!

So they planted tree ferns with these combo leaf-roots in the lab. And? As revealed by a handy Nitrogen-15 tracer, the weirdo leaves weren’t just self- sustaining. They were making new leaves!

Researchers think this leaf-root transformation could help the plant get nutrients from a wider area. That’s especially important in the rainforest, where the soil is nutrient poor.

I think being hungry enough could bring me back from the dead, too!


Reference: Dalling, J. W., García, E., Espinosa, C. I., Pizano, C., Ferrer, A., & Viana, J. L. (2024). Zombie leaves: Novel repurposing of senescent fronds in the tree fern Cyathea rojasiana in a tropical montane forest. Ecology. https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.4248