Study
Desiccation-tolerant flowering plants in southern Africa
Gaff, Donald F.
Science, 1971
Surveyed southern African flora for flowering plants whose vegetative tissue survives drying to air-dryness, and tested candidates by dehydrating and rehydrating them under controlled conditions.
- Studied in
- Plantae
- Sample size
- flowering plant species surveyed and tested for tolerance
A substantial number of flowering plant species survive the drying of their leaves to air-dryness and recover full function within hours to days of rewetting — a capacity previously thought largely confined to mosses and lichens.
What it means
The authors' reading, and ours. Where they differ, that difference is the point.
How the authors put it
Vegetative desiccation tolerance is more widespread among flowering plants than had been recognised, concentrated in seasonally arid rocky habitats.
How NatureHQ reads it
The survey that established resurrection plants as a real and repeated phenomenon rather than a handful of curiosities, and located them ecologically: shallow soil over rock, where there is nowhere to put roots and no way to avoid drying.
- A regional survey; the global distribution of the trait was established later.
- Tolerance was scored by recovery, which does not distinguish full recovery from partial.
What this study is used for on NatureHQ
One study can inform several subjects. Here is everywhere this one is cited.
Resurrection plants
Nearly every flowering plant already makes desiccation-tolerant tissue: its seeds. Resurrection plants appear to have switched that programme on in their leaves, rather than inventing tolerance from scratch.
Resurrection plants
A drying leaf in sunlight is still catching light it can no longer use, and that is actively dangerous. Much of what a resurrection plant does while drying is dismantling or shielding its own photosynthetic machinery.
Resurrection plants
The recovery is slower than the photographs suggest. Greening can take hours, but full photosynthetic function commonly takes days — and plants put through repeated rapid cycles fare worse than those dried slowly once.
Published by: American Association for the Advancement of SciencePublished in Science or Science Advances (AAAS).
doi.org/10.1126/science.174.4013.1033
Checked against Crossref on 2026-09-28, and they agree on the title, the authors and the year.
NatureHQ summarises research in its own words and does not reproduce published text. Reviewed 2026-09-03.