{"id":214403,"date":"2025-05-21T05:20:06","date_gmt":"2025-05-21T10:20:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/05\/on-the-origin-and-fate-of-plants-that-never-bloom"},"modified":"2025-05-21T05:20:06","modified_gmt":"2025-05-21T10:20:06","slug":"on-the-origin-and-fate-of-plants-that-never-bloom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/05\/on-the-origin-and-fate-of-plants-that-never-bloom","title":{"rendered":"On the origin (and fate) of plants that never bloom"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/on-the-origin-and-fate-of-plants-that-never-bloom2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Plants that reproduce exclusively by self-pollination arise from populations with extremely low diversity to begin with. Kobe University research not only adds a facet to possible evolutionary strategies, but also lends weight to Darwin\u2019s suspicion that this strategy might be a path to extinction.<\/p>\n<p>Charles Darwin once remarked, \u201cIt is hardly an exaggeration to say that nature tells us, in the most emphatic manner, that she abhors perpetual self-fertilization.\u201d And yet, Kobe University botanist Suetsugu Kenji knows of a few islands in Japan where orchids reproduce without ever opening their flowers.<\/p>\n<p>He says, \u201cI\u2019ve long been captivated by Darwin\u2019s skepticism about plants that rely entirely on self-pollination. When I found those non-blooming orchids, I felt this was a perfect chance to directly revisit this issue. The apparent defiance of evolutionary common sense made me wonder what precise conditions\u2014both environmental and genetic\u2014would allow a purely self-pollinating lifestyle to emerge, let alone persist.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Plants that reproduce exclusively by self-pollination arise from populations with extremely low diversity to begin with. Kobe University research not only adds a facet to possible evolutionary strategies, but also lends weight to Darwin\u2019s suspicion that this strategy might be a path to extinction. Charles Darwin once remarked, \u201cIt is hardly an exaggeration to say [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,412],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-214403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-existential-risks","category-genetics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214403\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}