How Do Flowers Know When to Bloom?

Flowers tend not to own calendars, so how do they know when to bloom?

Hosted by: Hank Green
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[secondsuccess]

"With genes like Leafy" Creativity award of the year goes to whatever scientist came up with that beautiful gene name.

[gab.lab.martins]

"...to grow a sex organ."

That made me laugh.

[Master_Therion]

How do they know? The same way I know when it's time to hang out with my friends... when my buds show up.

[DrewYoungThomas]

It is winter here in New Zealand but the tulips are blooming outside despite the rain and cold.

[Impured]

Weather has been so up and down recently around me that even the plants don't know when to bloom. They bloomed and unbloomed multiple times already this year and it's weird to see it.

[meskalin]

When you change the light from 18 hours to 12 hours, thats when they bloom. Happy 420! Peace!

[Reirae]

This year my lilac tree is already blooming. Usually it blooms much later in the summer, around mid-June. It's weird cause we had a super cold April too.

[Teekles]

I vote that every SciShow video starts with Hank saying "oh you, you're back" like he does @0:12

[gillianrandall]

This just makes me more curious about plants that flower before they put out new leaves (e.g. redbuds, ornamental cherries, and magnolia) as well as specific cases like cocoa trees which can bloom mid trunk.

[ziboyang]

I love how biologists just already name the hormone without even knowing anything about it

[JohnSmith-tdhd]

1:00 The only think I can pay attention to here is the radical acceleration of the box when it gets to the end of the conveyer belt.

[YouBoob]

Our roses flowered in early February this year... Which for the north of Ireland is beyond bizarre. We had a weirdly warm January so I guess that's why

[jcyustis]

Great video as always, although the "florigen" isn't exactly the RNA per se. The so called "florigen", as you first explained, was first hypothesized to be a hormone, but later on, researchers found out it wasn't. The florigen is in fact, the protein produced by a gene called Flowering Locus T (aka FT). The FT protein is produced in the leaves and then it travels to the meristem (more precisely the Shoot Apical Meristem (aka SAM), as roots also possess a meristem) through the "phloem", a sort of homologue to an animal's circulatory system; the FT protein is the one that interacts with Leafy and Apetala1 to promote flowering! Hopefully the team of SciShow will be able to see this comment. Thank you guys for helping promote the knowledge of science!

[jaedenvanderberg]

I did not expect that ending statement.

[paedors]

So what about plants which bloom very rarely, once every several years or so? Do they sync up with el nino or something?

[hot_guy]

well yeah there’s more that make flowers bloom than April showers because there’s flowers that that literally bloom before April even gets here

[rustyshackleford]

Very convenient 😄, I just planted some sunflower seeds and want to plan a garden party for when theyre in full bloom

[StaySafeDontDie]

You say "hello" to the flowers, but I say "goodbye". The weird weather killed all the daffodils over a month ago, I think. It was really disappointing. I don't even think the flowers were _around_ for a month. :(

[vinkuu]

They know when to flower when the grower switches the light cycle from 18h/6h to 12h/12h.

[Thee_Sinner]

They know because they can sense when my cold finally goes away and it's time for allergies..