Article Dans Une Revue Quantitative Plant Biology Année : 2025

Reversible bending of U-shaped plant petioles under dehydration

Résumé

The shape of plants can be sensitive to dehydration. Here, we focus on herbaceous plants whose petiole cross-section is U-shaped and contains a lot of water. Among a large range of plants showing the same behavior, we examine Spathiphyllum that exhibits a pronounced, sudden but reversible drooping under dehydration. We show that it is the consequence of a high-amplitude hinge mechanism located at the base of its long petioles, similar to a carpenter's tape folding under sufficient load. Mechanical testing demonstrated that small-amplitude bending rigidity decreases by only a factor of three during dehydration, due to tissue shrinkage rather than material softening. The petiole is composed of water-rich parenchyma tissue: drooping occurs abruptly at 35%-40% of mass loss, remaining reversible unless dehydration is prolonged. Inspired by these observations, we introduce a biomimetic hinge that offers a programmable bending stiffness and nonlinear behavior under load, with applications in computing mechanical metamaterials.

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hal-05406392 , version 1 (09-12-2025)

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Anne Schliebach, Mohammad Nadim Kamar, Baptiste Bordet, Catherine Quilliet, Benjamin Dollet, et al.. Reversible bending of U-shaped plant petioles under dehydration. Quantitative Plant Biology, 2025, pp.1-17. ⟨10.1017/qpb.2025.10030⟩. ⟨hal-05406392⟩
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