‘Rip Van Winkle’ orchids can sleep under soil for 20 years

IF a gardener tells you that some of their dead plants have come back to life, you might think they’ve lost the plot.

But they may be on to something. Researchers have found that some plants can ‘hibernate’ in the soil for up to 20 years.

The so- called ‘Rip Van Winkle’ plants, named after the fictional character who slept for two decades and missed the American revolution, include many orchids.

Researchers from Sussex University and Tokyo University studied 114 plant species from 24 different plant families.

They found the plant that can lie dormant for longest is an orchid common in British woodland called the Epipactis helleborine, which can last for 20 years in the soil without emerging.

Both the burnt-tip orchid and the lady’s slipper orchid can lie dormant for seven years, the journal Ecology Letters reports. Professor Michael Hutchings, emeritus professor in ecology at Sussex, said: ‘Many of these species have found ways to overcome the loss of opportunities to photosynthesise during dormancy, especially by evolving mechanisms enabling them to obtain carbohydrates and nutrients from soil-based fungal associates.’

Staying underground is a strategy to see out difficult times, the researchers report.

Reasons for plants entering a period of dormancy include the risk that buds and new shoots will be lost to herbivores, a poor growing season which prevents the buildup of sufficient resources to produce sprouts in the following year, and winters that are so mild that plants do not perceive that spring has arrived.