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Asked by to David, Johanna, Linda, Tamas, Tom on 19 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
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David Davila answered on 19 Jun 2014:
Some plants have adapted really special traits to survive hot, dry conditions, here are 3:
1) Spikes! Many animals eat plants for their food, and especially in the desert for their water. Plants like cactuses evolved to have spikes to protect themselves from such predators so they can store water inside!
2) Shallow roots: a lot of desert plants have roots that don’t go very deep, but stay near the surface of the dirt so that when rain DOES come, it can soak up as much water as it can before the sun dries it up.
3) Waxy coatings: A lot of desert plants make their own kind of ‘wax’ that coats their leaves and stems, and this means they are waterproof and don’t lose much of their water to the hot sun!
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Thomas Smith answered on 27 Jun 2014:
It would be rude not to talk about fire because some plants have also adapted to survive fires as well!
I was amazed to see that the pine forests of Canada actually NEED fire to reproduce. The seed pods of the pine trees are coated in a wax. The only way for the seeds to be released is if a fire comes and melts the wax. This is actually quite common all over the world. When a fire melts the wax, the seeds are released and the young sapling trees grow well because the ash from the fire contains a lot of nutrients (food for the young trees).
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