When germinating, the flower does not

2003/11/25 Elhuyar Zientzia

• Biokimika
• Botanika

It was already known that there are flowers, petunis and dragon tips that lose odor when germinating. Some researchers have explained the molecular mechanism of this process.

In fact, the rich aroma emitted by the flower aims to attract pollinating animals. However, when the flower is fertilized, it does not need more pollen and, therefore, it is useless to continue producing steam.

The petunia and the dragon ends mentioned above use a similar mechanism for steam production, but researchers have found that there are different ways to curb production.

In the case of petunia, ethylene stops the gene from the enzyme needed to produce steam. Ethylene is a plant hormone that participates in many processes, such as the need for ripening of fruits and falling leaves.

At the Dragonese end, however, the influence of ethylene is not the same and the mechanism that stops steam production is very different: the proportion between two compounds of the flower is that which determines whether or not steam is produced.

Knowing the mechanism of steam production of flowers is very interesting in gardening, since the human being has spent years crossing the plants to give flowers more beautiful and more intense color, but in that effort many flowers have lost their original smell. Knowing the mechanism of the perfume of the flowers, it is possible to recover the lost smell from generation to generation at the crosses.

Photo: Tom Campbell