Plant Traits Affect Phenology

By Richard Primack 

 

“You may know what a thing costs or is worth to you; you can never know what it costs or is worth to me.” Henry David Thoreau in his Journal. 

 

The timing of events in the life of wildflowers remains under-studied despite their importance in the species richness of temperate ecosystems. To provide this information, a recent paper in the New Phytologist reports on the results of a study of 212 wildflower species at 5 botanical gardens in Germany.   

Trout lily is an early spring woodland wildflower. 

Data was collected on timing of leaf out and initial growth, flowering, fruiting, and leaf senescence.  Functional traits were also measured, including plant height, absolute and specific leaf area, leaf dry matter content, leaf carbon and nitrogen content and seed mass.  

 

Rose mallow flowers late July and August in river margins and flood plains.

Taller plants showed later timing of initial growth, and flowered, fruited and underwent leaf senescence later. Large-leaved species had shorter flowering and fruiting durations.  

Figure. Taller plants have later fruiting; blue indicates positive relationships, and red indicates negative relationships.

 

Figure. Plants with larger leaves have a shorter flowering duration.

 

There were also major differences in phenology among the five gardens, highlighting the importance of local growing conditions in affecting plant phenology.  

 

The study was published as: Sporbert, M. et al. 2022. Functional traits influence patterns in vegetative and reproductive plant phenology – a multi-botanical garden study. New Phytologist 235: 2199–2210 doi: 10.1111/nph.18345