Why are you able to propagate some plants in water, but cut flowers always die eventually?
In: Biology
Cuttings of plants typically use an intact piece of the main stem, and even then this is not possible with all plants as some simply don’t have the type of tissue and growth patterns needed to grow new roots from cuttings. On the opposite end, some plants don’t even need stems for propagation, they can do it from just intact leaves, growing roots and a stem.
Most cuttings are kept in water because the cuttings are prone to drying out before they can root in just soil. However others are kept in wet soil or even dry soil in the case of many succulents.
Flowers and the stalks that they come off of don’t have this tissue or potential for regrowth, *usually*. A notable exception to this is Dionaea Muscipula, aka the Venus Flytrap, which can be readily propagated from cut flower stalks. Another sort of exception are certain types of Orchids, such as Phalaenopsis(the most common type seen in stores), which can’t reproduce from the actual stalk if cut, but produce clones of the parent known as Keikis along the stalk.
cut flowers can not regrow roots and therefore dies. if the root system remains intact it will remain alive longer……but not indefinitely because floweres need more nutrients than just water
its only very specific plants that can thrive long term with only water to sustain them
The flowers that can propagate have to be perennial plants, single-year plants expect the stem to die off after producing seeds so regrowing roots isn’t in their plan.
But if you take for example a rose out of bouquet (and it has some leaves on the stem) you could trim off the bottom and the flower, plant the stem in a warm and humid environment and it’ll take root.
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