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1media/harvester peach tree c of garden hills nursery.jpg2019-04-07T23:39:06-07:00Sam Henrickson5cd0ff97c337b26d01e84db58bdb9506b40fff7a335195Ritualsplain2019-04-20T20:56:53-07:00Sam Henrickson5cd0ff97c337b26d01e84db58bdb9506b40fff7aRitualsPlants often find themselves performing rituals as a part of their life cycles. A plant creates fruit and flowers which both help to spread the species either though pollination or seed dispersal and help to evolve the plant to further its movement toward Ultimate Perfection. The Taraxacum, or dandelion, for example, grows first from a basal rosette into a yellow or orange flower head, which is made up of lots of tiny florets instead of having petals, which then later on mature into a seedhead often called a blowball with many single-seed fruits called achenes. The achenes are biologically made for fast dispersal, as they are light and easily detached from the blowball by wind. The creation of the fruits leads to a congregation, another kind of ritual-- as the fruits fly off the blowball, they may land somewhere close by, which leads to fields of thousands of dandelions. Meanwhile, fruits co-evolved with agricultural human practices, and so selective breeding lead us to having the fruits we know today. Fruits evolved to have a skin that needs to be peeled before it is eaten, like citrus fruits, have it so that the fruit inside will be more resistant to microbes and weather damage. In citrus fruits specifically, there is something called a pith, which is the white, thin, stringy pieces that coat the inside of the peel. This developed to slow herbivores down, as its unpleasantness meant the animals were more likely to wait until the fruit was riper (and ready for seed distribution: when a citrus fruit is not yet ripe the pith is much thicker). This encourages the Ultimate Perfection quest of most plants: the fruit is a catchall for many animals, since the herbivore will go for the aromatic and good-tasting ripe fruit (which is just the plants evolved way of spreading its seeds) than the leaves or stalks of the plants, which are its livelihood.
