So I have this healthy little zucchini seedling.
I checked on it late at night, lights were out, and it did this:
It folded up its cotyledons. I wanted to google around and figure out how common that was, if it's normal, etc, but I couldn't even come up with the right keywords. Anyway, it's back to normal today for its sun bath, it seems happy, I'm just curious what that was.
Here if a flower or plant sleeps, it means it is dead.
Nyctinasty is the technical term when some plants' flowers or leaves close at night. It is a circadium rhythm thing that they do that. Certain cells in the plant are able to change their shape in response to the different spectrum of light. Blue light in the daytime keep the leaves open and red light at dusk and night will make them close.
It has to do with the action of the potassium pump in specialized cells located at the joint of the leaves called the pulvini that passively pumps water in and out of the cells through osmosis and acts like the hinges of a door popping the leaves up and down.
P.S. I really did not know all this stuff. I looked it up and this is just the simplified version.
Nyctinasty is the technical term when some plants' flowers or leaves close at night. It is a circadium rhythm thing that they do that. Certain cells in the plant are able to change their shape in response to the different spectrum of light. Blue light in the daytime keep the leaves open and red light at dusk and night will make them close.
It has to do with the action of the potassium pump in specialized cells located at the joint of the leaves called the pulvini that passively pumps water in and out of the cells through osmosis and acts like the hinges of a door popping the leaves up and down.
P.S. I really did not know all this stuff. I looked it up and this is just the simplified version.