Fire Resistant Flora
This question is connected to: Fire Resistant Fauna
I've been pondering a short story concept where a scientific expedition discovered a planet with a huge amount of both free hydrogen and oxygen in the atmosphere.
This is caused by an unobtanium crystal widespread on the surface of the planet which acts as a catalyst, splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen and absorbing heat and sunlight to do so. (That heat then gets released back into the environment when the gases burn).
The resulting atmosphere is highly flammable and as a result flash-fires are a common occurrence. These involve a burst of heat and flame and even mild explosions but are also over very quickly. Very fast-moving flame fronts sweep through the atmosphere, averaging at least one a day, but passing in a matter of moments. Water falls out of the sky in the aftermath of the flash fire and is then split back into oxygen and hydrogen once more by the unobtanium crystals.
Assuming plant life has evolved to survive in these conditions what adaptions could they make to survive? On earth plants tend to either have seeds that survive or allow leaves to burn away and then sprout again. Neither tactic would be effective against near-daily fires though.
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1 answer
There are fire resistant plants on Earth that you can model it after.
Redwoods are pretty hard to burn. I recall seeing a video of a guy holding a blowtorch to a piece of redwood, and it not catching. I haven't found the video yet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIWc8jntIl0 has a little information on redwoods.
Also: Fire Resistance The high level of tannic acid in the wood and bark in combination with the thickness of the bark (6-12") help to provide a resistance to natural and man-made fires. The growth layer, protected by the thick bark, allow a healing process to occur after damage.
If you want to go with an otherworldly answer, why do your plants have to be carbon based? Silicon based plants would be more fire resistant.
Maybe plants that are carbon based but grow a hardened shell. Diamond is carbon, and you have to get it pretty hot before it'll burn.
How about some kind of slime coating that the plants excrete that acts line a natural fire suppressant.
It really wouldn't take much protection to stop something from burning during a flash flareup like you describe.
If you take a normal sheet of paper, you can hold a match to the center for a few seconds with just a little darkening, but if you hold it to the edge of the paper it'll light right up. So maybe plants that don't have normal leaves where edges can catch easily. Leaves could be thicker and rounded to avoid catching easily.
It seems like high pressure blast waves would be the biggest threat.
http://io9.com/hydrogen-explosion-vs-oxygen-explosion-which-one-wi-1529540558
Is a pretty cool video about burning hydrogen and oxygen versus burning either by itself.
Your plants would most likely be ground hugging or at least very elastic to lessen the chance of being ripped apart by over pressure.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G46oncRAaTQ
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