In article ,
GregS wrote:

Once they are picked, they are dead. They get no water or nutrients
to continue growing.


Funny how potatoes and onions sprount in the fridg. They
may slow down but are not dead. They are officially dead if they dry out
or are consumed by mold.

Or, consider the "Resurrection fern" (Polypodium polypodioides).
Pick it, let it dry out, and it shrivels up, losing up to about 3/4 of
their internal moisture during natural dry spells (and up to 95% or
more under experimental conditions). The cell walls fold up, it
ceases metabilizing... is it dead?

Put it back in water, several years later... and 24 hours later it
will have rehydrated itself, turned green, and it's growing healthily
once again... is it alive?

Or, for a more common example: take seeds. I've got over a dozen
healthy tomato seedlings growing outside, about to be transplanted
into the garden. Most of them were started in February, from seeds I
saved from a previous generation of open-pollenated tomato plants...
back in 1991! They've been in the freezer for almost 20 years, well
dried and then frozen... and I got about 80% germination rates for
most of the varieties.

Were these seeds alive, or dead? How about the plants which sprouted
from them after the seeds were planted?

--
Dave Platt AE6EO
Friends of Jade Warrior home page: http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior
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