����ý

The lives of plants can be just as dramatic, astounding and beautiful as anything else in nature.

There are plants that can live for over a thousand years, plants that grow several metres wide and plants that are smaller than a pinhead.

Some are surprisingly strong, such as water lilies. In August 2024, Denver Botanic Gardens in the US hosted a water lily weigh-off, inviting botanic gardens around the world to display how much weight their water lilies could carry on TikTok. Plenty of organisations got involved, with the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh even choosing to use cases of Irn-Bru to pile on the weight.

����ý Bitesize asked experts from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, to tell us more about six of the world’s most astonishing plants.

Amazon water lily (Victoria amazonica)

The national flower of Guyana, in South America, the Amazon water lily is the largest type of water lily in the world. Its circular leaves can stretch up to 3m (9.84ft) wide, but it only takes around a week and a half to expand.

Incredibly, Carlos Magdalena says that “despite being rather brittle, they can easily take the weight of a child … If a panel is placed on the surface on the pad (to distribute the weight across the pad) they can also support the weight of an adult.”

He adds that underneath each lily pad is a “‘a network of struts… made of sponge like tissue filled with air. This gives the pad a very strong buoyancy.” Long stalks anchor the plant to the ground.

Tropical pitcher plants (Nepenthes)

A lack of nitrogen in the soil where they grow means that these carnivorous plants use their hollow, jug-shaped pitchers to obtain the nutrient from animals instead.

As Dr Martin Cheek points out, tropical pitcher plants “are unique because some species have the largest animal traps known in the plant world, and attract, trap and digest, not just large insects, but rats and mice.”

Insects are drawn to tropical pitcher plants by their bright colours and the sweet nectar they produce. However, once an insect lands in the pitcher itself, they get caught and drown in a sticky liquid, which ultimately dissolves them.

One species of tropical pitcher plant is actually named after Sir David Attenborough - the Nepenthes attenboroughii.

Welwitschia mirabilis

Sometimes referred to as a living fossil, Welwitschia mirabilis is known to have been around for approximately 112 million years. Some plants alive today are thought to be an impressive 1,500 years old.

According to Dr David Goyder, it “is the only surviving member of an isolated evolutionary lineage of plants that pre-dates the formation of the Atlantic Ocean. It is the only species alive today in an ancient group close to, but distinct from conifers.” This unique history means it could potentially provide scientists with a greater insight into how cone-bearing seed plants evolved.

Found solely in the inhospitable Namib Desert of Angola and Namibia, in southern Africa, Welwitschia mirabilis produces two broad, flat leaves which can grow several metres long. When the morning fog rolls in from the Atlantic Ocean, the moisture in the air condenses on these leaves. The water is then channelled towards the ground, where it can be absorbed by the roots, enabling the plant to survive in the desert.

Mycorrhizal networks

This isn’t a single plant, but rather a complex system which allows lots of plants to connect together.

Dr Laura Martinez-Suz explains: “Plants can be connected to each other below ground through their roots by fungi forming mycorrhizal networks. Through these networks, plants can translocate carbon, nutrients, water, defence signals and allelochemicals among each other via fungal pathways.

But why would plants want to share their resources?

Dr Martinez-Suz says that it’s because these networks aid plant “growth, survival and defence and affect plant diversity, resource competition and stability against environmental stress.” For example, older and more established trees can transfer nutrients to younger saplings growing close to the ground in more shaded areas, where there isn’t sufficient sunlight for photosynthesis.

Teddy bear cholla (Cylindropuntia bigelovii)

This type of cactus might sound cuddly and cute but you certainly wouldn’t want to give it a hug.

Densely covered in sharp spines, the teddy bear cholla looks fuzzy from a distance. However, Dr Olwen Grace warns that “when brushed by an unsuspecting animal (or unfortunate human), the spines hook into the animal, the segment detaches from the main plant, and away it travels. Eventually it will drop off the animal and set root where it lands (providing conditions are right) to grow into another plant.”

Dr Grace also explains how the teddy bear cholla can survive in hot and dry environments: “The plant body is succulent (water-storing) and the plant has evolved to have spines instead of leaves, while the segmented stem is green and does the photosynthesising.”

Asian watermeal (Wolffia globosa)

This is the smallest flowering plant in the world. In fact, Rafael Govaerts says that “the flowers are so tiny that they are rarely observed and can only be properly seen under a microscope.”

Despite their small size, Asian watermeal certainly make an impression. Govaerts highlights that “although individual watermeal plants are tiny, they always occur by the thousands, even millions, floating on the surface of Asian ponds. The tiny plants continuously make new baby plants and they can turn a pond green in weeks.”

Without roots, the plant simply floats on the surface of the water.

The Green Planet is on ����ý One. You can also follow the series on iPlayer.

This article was published in January 2022 and updated in September 2024.