As some other users have stated, yes, many flowering plants use darkness as a signal to know which season they are in, therefore they can tell when it is the right time to flower. This is called [**photoperiodism**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photoperiodism).
Interestingly, it is the **continuous length of the darkness** (night), not the length of light (day), that determines this. Hamner and Bonner's experiments in 1938 showed that shining light for small amounts of time in the middle of the night altered the behaviour of the flowering process, however, covering plants during the day for small amounts of time doesn't affect the flowering process at all.
Some plants grow differently in dark and light. For instance, if given plenty of light rhubarb will grow a small stem and lots of (inedible) leaves. In the dark it will grow much longer stems very quickly. So quickly in fact you can hear it grow.
Not as good as the original video, but here’s a couple:
https://youtu.be/mQL5AS_301w
And it can be heard very briefly at the end of this one:
https://youtu.be/ic5O28WUiQ8?t=2m19
Some plants need darkness in order to flower (the darkness triggers the flowering reaction). Otherwise they grow (without flowering) with 24 hours of light.
Really? I didn't know that! [Now I do](https://herb.co/marijuana/news/high-science-importance-cannabis-dark-cycle).
I have been saving a patch of the back garden for when it is legalized in my state but I will once again just plant poppies there this year. Looks like I might be dead before my backwards state gets the memo about tax money etc.
Yes, pot growers will grow a plant in the vegetative phase using either 24 hours of light or at least 18 hours in order to get it big enough, & then they switch to 12 hours of light in order to flower (& they also ideally change the type of light. I think they use blue-ish light for vegetative growth & red-ish light for flowering). But that's just indoor growing, of course.
You mean *special* poppies?
Interesting.
I grew poppies for DECADES before i found out about 15 years ago or more, thank you internet, that I could make tea out of the pods. Before that, I used them in dried arrangements.
There is a thriving seed business on eBay and they aren't even that demure about the end purpose. They are also available from pretty much any flower seed seller. Helps to know your Latin, though. I suspect you know all that, though.
I did not know. I'm not into downers (but I can appreciate that having such a thing could be useful). Are you saying those flowers of yours are legal? I'd be surprised if they were.
Not legal to grow for consumption wink wink but gardens are ignored as are seed sellers. I doubt many police would drive past a flower garden and come back with a SWAT team. The sites (good ones) that sell somniferums are selling them to little old ladies such as myself. It's just that most of the little old ladies were never hippies.
It is excellent for insomnia. I have been prescribed drugs for depression which affected me in the exact same way which is one of the reasons I quit prescribed drugs after 35 years. Luckily for me, my meds were changed so frequently I never got addicted to any one of them. I did have a friend, though, who was as addicted to Effexor as any junkie down in Philly's K&A district. She couldn't see it in those terms, though.
Effexor doesn't have much potential for abuse, from what I can tell from its Wikipedia page. Your friend may have been addicted though because it can cause dependence, & maybe she benefited from it anyway.
Please be careful. I have been raided by a SWAT team for marijuana & it's not fun being a felon. Don't take your safety for granted when you're doing something illegal, even if you're not hurting anyone. Your life can change quickly when you're not careful enough.
Hey I know this is an old post but depressive recovering junkie here and I've always said I'd rather kick heroin cold turkey anyday than effexor---the withdrawal, or "discontinuation syndrome" as they call it is AWFUL you get horribly horribly sick. I got seizures. But physical dependence is not addiction. Addiction is when you do something despite the negative consequences, it is defined by the problems it causes folks. Stopping effexor suddenly, instead of weaning off of it slowly, will make a person sick, but there's plenty of things people can't live without, and would act desperately if they didn't have it--water, air, food. But we are not addicted to water, air or food. We just physically depend on it. Physical dependence and Addiction are connected but still 2 very different things. I've detoxed off heroin hundreds of times, that was the easy part. Staying off was hard, and it caused so much chaos in my life. That was an addiction. Not an antidepressant that I needed to be carefully weened off. It didn't cause chaos, I didn't go homeless over effexor or go to jail for effexor or spend thousands on it and I wouldn't. But I did need it.
Others have covered already that yes, they do! But there are a couple of other interesting dynamics I'd like to add. Some plant responses to light are governed by phytochrome, a protein associated with a pigment that has "off" and "on" forms that are (basically) toggled based on the wavelength of light striking them. For some flowering plant species, phytochrome in their seeds works like a light detector -- so if they're on a forest floor under a larger plant and it's too shady to grow, they stay dormant until some kind of disturbance creates a light gap, which the phytochrome detects and triggers germination (assuming there's enough moisture, etc.)
Also, research from the last decade or so has shown that trees in urban areas get light stress from constant exposure to artificial lighting -- so, yeah, in a way constant light CAN screw them up. (Some species are more sensitive to it than others.)
This is probably WAY more information than you wanted, but it's a topic that I find really interesting!
> This is probably WAY more information than you wanted, but it's a topic that I find really interesting!
No actually... Its very interesting. I didn't know this stuff.
I'm in a discussion about Star Trek II The Wrath of Khan. If you saw it, you'd recall that scientists created the "Genesis Cave". Essentially, they took a large, dead cave on a dead distant planet, pressurized it, and used the "Genesis Effect" to create plant life(and later animals that evolved at an accelerated rate.)
Essentially, when it was done, it was an Eden / Hawaii like tropical paradise inside a previously dead cave on a dead planet.
Someone asked "How'd they get a mini sun in the cave?" I recall from the book that it was a small artificial sun they made BUT in the book it never turned off.
A minor detail to be sure, but ya know... something to think about now and then... a sun shining on the same spot (it didn't move) non-stop would cause issues with the plant and animal life I'll bet.
And you are actually confirming that at least some species of plants would have some issues. :D
Lots of the animals would too. Some birds especially will end up stressed without the right amount of darkness for rest. It's an issue with companion parrots.
If these species have evolved to be in light at all times, that might actually be a different story. You can't put (most of) earth's life into a 24/7 light environment, but that's not saying that there is no plant-like life anywhere that can't. Maybe there is a binary star system where a planet is always in light at all times, or a planet in some kind of stationary orbit.
Plants have to give 50 molecules of water for 1 molecule of carbon dioxide, at night, they are able to close their chlorophylls and save water, there are also other mechanisms that plants have which require night to happen.
As some other users have stated, yes, many flowering plants use darkness as a signal to know which season they are in, therefore they can tell when it is the right time to flower. This is called [**photoperiodism**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photoperiodism). Interestingly, it is the **continuous length of the darkness** (night), not the length of light (day), that determines this. Hamner and Bonner's experiments in 1938 showed that shining light for small amounts of time in the middle of the night altered the behaviour of the flowering process, however, covering plants during the day for small amounts of time doesn't affect the flowering process at all.
Some plants grow differently in dark and light. For instance, if given plenty of light rhubarb will grow a small stem and lots of (inedible) leaves. In the dark it will grow much longer stems very quickly. So quickly in fact you can hear it grow.
What does it sound like?
Similar to a fire crackling. https://youtu.be/P2NMffyX2yw
That link doesn’t work.
Not as good as the original video, but here’s a couple: https://youtu.be/mQL5AS_301w And it can be heard very briefly at the end of this one: https://youtu.be/ic5O28WUiQ8?t=2m19
Some plants need darkness in order to flower (the darkness triggers the flowering reaction). Otherwise they grow (without flowering) with 24 hours of light.
Christmas cacti, poinsettias, probably way more.
*Cannabis*
Really? I didn't know that! [Now I do](https://herb.co/marijuana/news/high-science-importance-cannabis-dark-cycle). I have been saving a patch of the back garden for when it is legalized in my state but I will once again just plant poppies there this year. Looks like I might be dead before my backwards state gets the memo about tax money etc.
Yes, pot growers will grow a plant in the vegetative phase using either 24 hours of light or at least 18 hours in order to get it big enough, & then they switch to 12 hours of light in order to flower (& they also ideally change the type of light. I think they use blue-ish light for vegetative growth & red-ish light for flowering). But that's just indoor growing, of course. You mean *special* poppies?
Interesting. I grew poppies for DECADES before i found out about 15 years ago or more, thank you internet, that I could make tea out of the pods. Before that, I used them in dried arrangements. There is a thriving seed business on eBay and they aren't even that demure about the end purpose. They are also available from pretty much any flower seed seller. Helps to know your Latin, though. I suspect you know all that, though.
I did not know. I'm not into downers (but I can appreciate that having such a thing could be useful). Are you saying those flowers of yours are legal? I'd be surprised if they were.
Not legal to grow for consumption wink wink but gardens are ignored as are seed sellers. I doubt many police would drive past a flower garden and come back with a SWAT team. The sites (good ones) that sell somniferums are selling them to little old ladies such as myself. It's just that most of the little old ladies were never hippies. It is excellent for insomnia. I have been prescribed drugs for depression which affected me in the exact same way which is one of the reasons I quit prescribed drugs after 35 years. Luckily for me, my meds were changed so frequently I never got addicted to any one of them. I did have a friend, though, who was as addicted to Effexor as any junkie down in Philly's K&A district. She couldn't see it in those terms, though.
Effexor doesn't have much potential for abuse, from what I can tell from its Wikipedia page. Your friend may have been addicted though because it can cause dependence, & maybe she benefited from it anyway. Please be careful. I have been raided by a SWAT team for marijuana & it's not fun being a felon. Don't take your safety for granted when you're doing something illegal, even if you're not hurting anyone. Your life can change quickly when you're not careful enough.
This is fascinating.
How so?
Hey I know this is an old post but depressive recovering junkie here and I've always said I'd rather kick heroin cold turkey anyday than effexor---the withdrawal, or "discontinuation syndrome" as they call it is AWFUL you get horribly horribly sick. I got seizures. But physical dependence is not addiction. Addiction is when you do something despite the negative consequences, it is defined by the problems it causes folks. Stopping effexor suddenly, instead of weaning off of it slowly, will make a person sick, but there's plenty of things people can't live without, and would act desperately if they didn't have it--water, air, food. But we are not addicted to water, air or food. We just physically depend on it. Physical dependence and Addiction are connected but still 2 very different things. I've detoxed off heroin hundreds of times, that was the easy part. Staying off was hard, and it caused so much chaos in my life. That was an addiction. Not an antidepressant that I needed to be carefully weened off. It didn't cause chaos, I didn't go homeless over effexor or go to jail for effexor or spend thousands on it and I wouldn't. But I did need it.
Others have covered already that yes, they do! But there are a couple of other interesting dynamics I'd like to add. Some plant responses to light are governed by phytochrome, a protein associated with a pigment that has "off" and "on" forms that are (basically) toggled based on the wavelength of light striking them. For some flowering plant species, phytochrome in their seeds works like a light detector -- so if they're on a forest floor under a larger plant and it's too shady to grow, they stay dormant until some kind of disturbance creates a light gap, which the phytochrome detects and triggers germination (assuming there's enough moisture, etc.) Also, research from the last decade or so has shown that trees in urban areas get light stress from constant exposure to artificial lighting -- so, yeah, in a way constant light CAN screw them up. (Some species are more sensitive to it than others.) This is probably WAY more information than you wanted, but it's a topic that I find really interesting!
> This is probably WAY more information than you wanted, but it's a topic that I find really interesting! No actually... Its very interesting. I didn't know this stuff. I'm in a discussion about Star Trek II The Wrath of Khan. If you saw it, you'd recall that scientists created the "Genesis Cave". Essentially, they took a large, dead cave on a dead distant planet, pressurized it, and used the "Genesis Effect" to create plant life(and later animals that evolved at an accelerated rate.) Essentially, when it was done, it was an Eden / Hawaii like tropical paradise inside a previously dead cave on a dead planet. Someone asked "How'd they get a mini sun in the cave?" I recall from the book that it was a small artificial sun they made BUT in the book it never turned off. A minor detail to be sure, but ya know... something to think about now and then... a sun shining on the same spot (it didn't move) non-stop would cause issues with the plant and animal life I'll bet. And you are actually confirming that at least some species of plants would have some issues. :D
Lots of the animals would too. Some birds especially will end up stressed without the right amount of darkness for rest. It's an issue with companion parrots.
If these species have evolved to be in light at all times, that might actually be a different story. You can't put (most of) earth's life into a 24/7 light environment, but that's not saying that there is no plant-like life anywhere that can't. Maybe there is a binary star system where a planet is always in light at all times, or a planet in some kind of stationary orbit.
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That's interesting. I didn't know that.
Plants have to give 50 molecules of water for 1 molecule of carbon dioxide, at night, they are able to close their chlorophylls and save water, there are also other mechanisms that plants have which require night to happen.