Question

What is the characteristic of a desert plant?
A) No leaves or very small leaves
B) Spines
C) Deep roots
D) All of these

Answer 1

Hint: Desert is a harsh environment where the survival of plants is an issue. These desert plants have found a variety of modifications in them so as to cope up with these extreme conditions and survive where other plants could not.

Complete answer:
 Desert plant survival depends on being able to survive even if there is no or less rainfall. So, the plants in this atmosphere to cope up with the little or no rainfall during the dry months have specialised features to adapt even in the adverse atmosphere. These plants go into the dormant stage or use stored moisture that is in the plant itself. There are many plants like penstemon, desert mallow and desert marigold that usually bloom in early spring after the rain.

Feature of these plants are:
Smaller leaves and stem: One of the chief adaptions that we find in a desert climate is reduced the lead with the small size of the stem. It allows the plant to concentrate its water instead to spread it on the surface of the leaves. Some plants tend to have short in size, with fewer leaves and branches.

Modification of the leaves: There are many plants such as Barberry in which leaves are modified into spines. The leaf parts are generally attached to them to protect the plant from grazing animals and excessive transpiration.

Dormancy stage- There is some plant which goes into the dormant stage when there is a scarcity of water in the environment to reduce to time of hardship. When the water is again available, these plants will become active and resume growing.

Nocturnal activity- The desert plant survive by becoming active at night. We know that the process of evaporation is the least at night because the atmosphere is not much hot. Some plants like yucca open up their stomas at night to carry out transpiration. At night time, they losses less moisture as compared to morning time.

Modification in roots- It is a specialised feature seen in these desert plants in which these plants have long roots so as to increase more water content that is present deep inside the land. Due to desertification, the content of water is very less. So, these plants satisfy their needs, their roots penetrate deep inside the ground to retain water.

Considering the feature we get to know that desert plants have special modifications to survives in harsh conditions. The correct answer is option D, all of these.

Note: We generally refer to desert biome as sandy or stony soil, high temperature, and little moisture. The plants retaining in such kind of atmosphere needs special features. It receives only 10 inches of rain per year. Despite the common conception of the desert as hot like Africa’s Sahara, there are many deserts that is cold too such as the Gobi.