Ocotillo plants grow small leaves to photosynthesize when water is plentiful, and drop them to avoid heat gain and water loss when it's dry.
Special Series: Wild Ideas
This strategy is part of the series “Wild Ideas: The Biomimicry of Public Lands and Waters of the U.S.” by author and educator Adelheid Fischer. “Wild Ideas” proposes a new role for protecting and exploring the nation’s waters and wildlands––regarding them not just as places of beauty and recreation, but as vital sources of inspiration for solving some of humanity’s greatest challenges.
Introduction
In the desert, the line between what is dead and what merely waits is often unclear. Arguably, no plant feigns death—and bides its time—better than an ocotillo. The word for this desert shrub comes from the Spanish meaning “little torch.” It refers to the scarlet flower clusters that cap the end of the plant’s thin branches like the red tip of a match.
The Strategy
For much of the year, these woody stems, which grow in explosive arrays up to 20 feet high, appear dry and lifeless. But like so many other desert plants that are exquisitely attuned to episodic rainfall, ocotillos are nimble opportunists. Within days of a soaking rain, the branches can sprout a plush coat of leaves and begin photosynthesizing. Yet despite their profusion, these leaves are thrifty. Ocotillos have small leaves (a common desert known as “microphylly”). Their modest size minimizes the water loss that occurs when leaves open their breathing pores to carry out the gas exchange involved in , a vital water-saving strategy in the desert environment.
As soils dry out, these tiny leaves will drop. But the plants aren’t completely dependent on leaves for capturing the sun’s energy. In the droughty in-between times, their bare branches also store water and photosynthesize, albeit less efficiently than the leaves, and provide the energy and materials needed to grow future leaf buds. Ocotillos can repeat this process multiple times within a single year.
Slow growers, ocotillos generally live to 60 years of age, though research suggests they may pass the century mark. The ability to abide through critical lean times while remaining agile in times of abundance is key to this remarkable longevity.
Ocotillos have a distinct set of adaptations to survive in the harsh Sonoran Desert, but they are by no means alone. Many species of plants, animals, fungi, and microbes have carved out niches to survive and thrive here.
The Potential
Ocotillo serves as a great model for building complementary processes into systems. When resources are unpredictable, how can we maximize intake of them when they arrive, but still maintain productivity when they are absent? This could apply to planning sustainable local agriculture, managing volunteers or employees, or diversifying revenue types for individuals and organizations.
There are also more physical lessons to be drawn about storing and releasing water for managing water resources or building complementary arrays of different solar panel types.
What else comes to your mind?
