New Scientist
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High-altitude plants spend a lot of the year covered in thick snow, but one species at least appears to relish its icy canopy.
Botanists have discovered that Corydalis conorhiza grows a never-before described network of roots that reach upwards into the overlying snowpack to grab nutrients. This makes the plant the first species known to forage for nutrients in the snow.
“It’s remarkable that [the roots] haven’t been noticed before,” says Hans Cornelissen at VU University in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. “But they are easy to miss because they decay rapidly after snow melt and are soon unrecognisable.” After the short growing season and the return of the snow, a new network of roots grows again. Read more on newscientist.com…
