this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2025
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Science Memes

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[–] Redfox8@mander.xyz 2 points 3 hours ago

I had to look this up as it sounded unusual, but looking at the younh plant it is basically a small trunk covered in long floppy pine leaves/needles that superficially looks like a clump of grass at first. I suspect there's no evolutionary advantage to looking like grass, but storing up energy before growing upwards makes sense if there's a periodic fire risk with each fire risk period being over a couple of years. Also handy for dealing with browsing pressure from particulary hungry critters following a fire.