0:00:39 > 0:00:47Midwinter and the countryside is so still it seems almost lifeless.
0:00:47 > 0:00:54But these trees and bushes and grasses around me are living organisms, just like animals,
0:00:54 > 0:01:02with the same sort of problems as animals face in their lives if they are to survive.
0:01:02 > 0:01:08They have to fight one another; they have to compete for mates,
0:01:08 > 0:01:13and they have to invade new territories.
0:01:13 > 0:01:20We are seldom aware of these dramas because plants live on a different timescale.
0:01:22 > 0:01:28But these days we have ways of speeding things up visually
0:01:28 > 0:01:34and you can see just how dramatic the lives of plants can be.
0:01:39 > 0:01:43Condense three months into 20 seconds,
0:01:43 > 0:01:50and the desolation of winter quickly warms into the riot of spring.
0:01:53 > 0:01:56Speed a week into a minute
0:01:56 > 0:02:04and you can sense the urgency with which the ground-living plants race to unfurl their flowers.
0:02:37 > 0:02:44Wood anemones nod attentively at the sun as it rises and sets each day.
0:02:51 > 0:02:56Above, hazel leaves, moving to the same rhythm,
0:02:56 > 0:03:01pulse as they expand to their full size.
0:03:01 > 0:03:08Beneath them, the broad leaves of docks are rising from the ground.
0:03:26 > 0:03:34Foxgloves gape almost alarmingly as they invite insects to come and collect their pollen.
0:03:39 > 0:03:46Strange though it may seem, some plants can move not just their flowers and leaves,
0:03:46 > 0:03:49but can travel from place to place.
0:03:49 > 0:03:52Take, for example, this bramble.
0:04:01 > 0:04:04Of all the woodland plants,
0:04:04 > 0:04:07this is one of the most aggressive.
0:04:10 > 0:04:18It waves its shoots agitatedly from side to side as if feeling for the best way forward.
0:04:20 > 0:04:27And when a shoot settles on its course, it thrusts ahead relentlessly.
0:04:40 > 0:04:46The stem's backward-pointing spines give it the grip it needs
0:04:46 > 0:04:52to climb over almost anything that stands in its way.
0:04:58 > 0:05:03It can advance as much as three inches in a day.
0:05:11 > 0:05:14The shoot will put down rootlets
0:05:14 > 0:05:19and new territory will be annexed to the bramble's empire.
0:05:22 > 0:05:26Other adult plants travel even faster.
0:05:29 > 0:05:33The birdcage plant lives in California,
0:05:33 > 0:05:38but the desert dunes are always moving and a site becomes exposed,
0:05:38 > 0:05:41so the plant must find a new place.
0:06:24 > 0:06:30This plant is now dead, but within it there is still life.
0:06:34 > 0:06:39These tiny particles are the next generation.
0:06:39 > 0:06:47Each contains complete genetic instructions for rebuilding an adult plant like this.
0:06:47 > 0:06:54These small grains are the reason most plants do most of their travelling.
0:06:54 > 0:06:59Some of these genetic particles are, in fact, microscopic.
0:07:00 > 0:07:03Smallest of all belong to fungi.
0:07:03 > 0:07:07Fungi are not, to be accurate, plants at all
0:07:07 > 0:07:11they belong to a kingdom on their own
0:07:11 > 0:07:17but their spores are in many ways similar to seeds.
0:07:17 > 0:07:25A single puffball produces so many that someone has calculated that if, for two generations,
0:07:25 > 0:07:30every spore grew into an adult, the resultant mass of puffballs
0:07:30 > 0:07:35would be 800 times the volume of the earth.
0:07:35 > 0:07:42Like the birdcage plant, a puffball can be carried along by the wind,
0:07:42 > 0:07:50but the real travelling is done by the spores that are knocked from it in clouds, like smoke.
0:07:57 > 0:08:03In autumn, other smaller fungi appear on the woodland floor.
0:08:05 > 0:08:08Earthstars.
0:08:11 > 0:08:18Their appearance when they emerge gives little hint of how complex they will become.
0:08:18 > 0:08:24In the damp autumn air, the earthstars transform themselves.
0:08:56 > 0:09:03They open at this time of the year to take advantage of the falling rain.
0:09:07 > 0:09:09A drip gives them the energy
0:09:09 > 0:09:13to propel their spores into the air.
0:09:28 > 0:09:33Flowers also use the wind to transport their seeds
0:09:33 > 0:09:38and few do it more successfully than dandelions.
0:09:50 > 0:09:58As their petals fall their flower heads, over a period of one or two weeks,
0:09:58 > 0:10:02are transformed into wonderfully intricate globes,
0:10:02 > 0:10:09each a precise array of a hundred or so seeds, all awaiting the wind.
0:10:13 > 0:10:18Their seeds are much heftier than the spores of fungi.
0:10:18 > 0:10:23For them to fly, special apparatus is needed.
0:10:23 > 0:10:28Each is fitted with its own individual parachute.
0:10:35 > 0:10:40It is so efficient that a breeze carries the seeds high into the sky.
0:10:43 > 0:10:47In this dense crowd of adult plants,
0:10:47 > 0:10:50 there's no room for the next generation.
0:10:50 > 0:10:57The seeds must get away, and the wind will take them for miles.
0:11:25 > 0:11:33Trees have a particular advantage when despatching their seeds by air their height.
0:11:33 > 0:11:37The farther it falls, the farther it travels.
0:11:37 > 0:11:41And these cottonwood trees
0:11:41 > 0:11:46need only provide their seeds with straightforward fluff.
0:11:54 > 0:11:59But this, because of their height, is enough to carry them for miles.
0:12:01 > 0:12:08Every summer, the waters of the Great Lakes of North America become thickly flecked
0:12:08 > 0:12:12with cottonwood seeds around their margins.
0:12:12 > 0:12:17A few will wash up on distant shores and germinate.
0:12:17 > 0:12:25Most will be lost. But the seeds are so numerous it's of no consequence whatever.
0:12:25 > 0:12:30There is much less wind in the tropical rain forest.
0:12:30 > 0:12:33The humid air hangs as a mist,
0:12:33 > 0:12:38while below, there is seldom even a breath in the air.
0:12:38 > 0:12:43A plant here has to give its seeds very good flying equipment indeed.
0:12:43 > 0:12:50And none does that better than this liana in Borneo.
0:13:09 > 0:13:16Aircraft designers have tried to build a wing as efficient as this this one but failed.
0:13:16 > 0:13:22Even the faintest updraught produced by the slightest thermal
0:13:22 > 0:13:29is enough to lift this little glider with its seed passenger, and so extend its flight.
0:13:53 > 0:14:00Plants preceded humanity in building fixed-wing gliders and not only gliders.
0:14:02 > 0:14:05They created helicopters too...
0:14:10 > 0:14:13..sycamore seeds.
0:14:26 > 0:14:34The balance between the weight of the seed and the length and width of the wing is perfect.
0:14:34 > 0:14:39A slightly heavier seed or a shorter and narrower wing
0:14:39 > 0:14:44and the whole thing would fall like a stone.
0:14:44 > 0:14:50The tri-star plant produces a revolving seed with six blades
0:14:50 > 0:14:55and aircraft designers have yet to copy that.
0:14:59 > 0:15:02Or this.
0:15:11 > 0:15:14Plants also use explosives...
0:15:22 > 0:15:25..jet propulsion.
0:15:28 > 0:15:31This is a squirting cucumber.
0:15:41 > 0:15:44And this Himalayan balsam.
0:15:44 > 0:15:49Its seed capsules are pumped full of liquid to such a pressure
0:15:49 > 0:15:54 that the slightest touch makes them explode.
0:16:04 > 0:16:07The force is so great
0:16:07 > 0:16:13that seeds can be shot away for as much as fifteen feet.
0:16:23 > 0:16:29Mesembryanthemum seed heads are opened by rain.
0:16:32 > 0:16:35It's the sudden absorption of water
0:16:35 > 0:16:38that powers their opening.
0:16:40 > 0:16:45Once open, they expose a screen as taut as a trampoline.
0:16:45 > 0:16:51Raindrops bounce off it, taking the seeds with them.
0:17:01 > 0:17:07Water provides many plants with the power they need for travelling.
0:17:09 > 0:17:13It can shift really heavy, bulky ones.
0:17:13 > 0:17:21Beside many tropical rivers, there hangs the biggest of all seed pods the sea bean.
0:17:22 > 0:17:30These huge containers house one of the most successful of all vegetable travellers.
0:17:30 > 0:17:37There is a groove between each seed, so that each can fall away in its own separate packaging.
0:17:40 > 0:17:45One by one, the sea beans start on their voyages.
0:17:45 > 0:17:50This one is setting off down a small river in Africa.
0:18:18 > 0:18:23After a few miles perhaps even a few hundred miles
0:18:23 > 0:18:30the seed arrives at the mouth of its river and makes its way to the sea.
0:18:36 > 0:18:41It can voyage through groups of islands and out into the open sea
0:18:41 > 0:18:49to ride the great ocean currents for as much as a year and still remain alive.
0:18:53 > 0:18:56Its protective packaging
0:18:56 > 0:19:03may become so frayed and tattered that it disintegrates and releases the seed.
0:19:03 > 0:19:10But it's not a disaster, for the seed is able to float by itself.
0:19:10 > 0:19:18Many, doubtless, are lost at sea. But some eventually reach another and maybe a distant coast.
0:19:21 > 0:19:26One has landed on a tropical beach in northern Australia,
0:19:26 > 0:19:34I've no idea where it came from. It could be from a tree a few miles up the coast,
0:19:34 > 0:19:42or from another continent. Sea beans land on the coast of Europe, having come with the Gulf Stream.
0:19:42 > 0:19:47Of course it's too cold for them there and they seldom germinate,
0:19:47 > 0:19:55but if they land in the tropics, they will almost certainly grow. There's one on this very beach.
0:20:00 > 0:20:05So, some plants send their seeds by sea, some by air.
0:20:05 > 0:20:09But most, in fact, use living couriers.
0:20:15 > 0:20:18Animals with hairy coats
0:20:18 > 0:20:21are easily conscripted.
0:20:28 > 0:20:33The burdock uses hooks hundreds of them.
0:20:35 > 0:20:38And very effective they are.
0:20:50 > 0:20:52Eventually the burrs are licked off,
0:20:52 > 0:20:55picked off, or shaken off.
0:20:57 > 0:21:00If the burdock is lucky,
0:21:00 > 0:21:06 that will happen some distance from where the adult plant grew.
0:21:08 > 0:21:12Trousers will serve just as well as hairy coats,
0:21:12 > 0:21:16and shoes as hooves or paws.
0:21:17 > 0:21:24Here, in southern Africa, there is a creeper that uses not hooks but spikes.
0:21:24 > 0:21:32These things are called by the local people 'devil thorns' and you can see why.
0:21:32 > 0:21:39If an animal or human trod on that with a naked foot it would be very painful.
0:21:39 > 0:21:44But if you think that's bad, what about this?
0:22:10 > 0:22:14This is the seed case of the grapple plant.
0:22:16 > 0:22:22Animals with cleft hooves or relatively soft pads
0:22:22 > 0:22:27can be crippled by the grapple plant, but the bony, scaly feet of ostrich
0:22:27 > 0:22:30are particularly tough.
0:22:33 > 0:22:39They can carry this vicious hitchhiker for many miles
0:22:39 > 0:22:42without any ill effects.
0:22:46 > 0:22:51But there's another way of treating messengers.
0:22:51 > 0:22:57Instead of relying on chance encounters with them,
0:22:57 > 0:23:00you can tempt them with rewards.
0:23:01 > 0:23:04Many plants in these dry heathlands
0:23:04 > 0:23:09engage ants as carriers by attaching ant food to their seeds.
0:23:14 > 0:23:18If a seed lies out in the open for long here,
0:23:18 > 0:23:23a mouse or some other rodent will eat it. If it's to survive,
0:23:23 > 0:23:26it must get below ground quickly.
0:23:26 > 0:23:29And the ants take it there.
0:23:40 > 0:23:45The fleshy bit at the end is all the ants want.
0:23:45 > 0:23:50So the seed has now reached a safe resting place
0:23:50 > 0:23:54just below the surface of the ground.
0:23:56 > 0:24:03Plants bribe us too. And they make us fit in with THEIR timetable.
0:24:03 > 0:24:08This blackberry, for example, is not yet ready for my services.
0:24:08 > 0:24:16But as the flesh around the seeds sweetens, it announces the fact by changing colour.
0:24:18 > 0:24:24The blackberry's seeds will be more widely distributed
0:24:24 > 0:24:31if the plant is visited by a succession of different messengers
0:24:31 > 0:24:35so its berries do not all ripen simultaneously.
0:24:42 > 0:24:46Birds find them irresistible,
0:24:46 > 0:24:54and quickly spot them. For black is a very conspicuous colour. And so, too, is red.
0:25:05 > 0:25:09Birds see colour the same way as we do.
0:25:09 > 0:25:13What is vivid to them is vivid to us.
0:25:13 > 0:25:18So rowans and yews, strawberries and plums,
0:25:18 > 0:25:25cherries and hawthorns, use red or black to summon birds to collect their fruit.
0:25:32 > 0:25:39Tropical figs produce much smaller fruit than their European relative,
0:25:39 > 0:25:45and they turn yellow. Even so, their message is widely understood.
0:25:47 > 0:25:52A tropical fig tree in fruit is a huge bonanza in the forest.
0:25:52 > 0:25:56All kinds of diners come to the tree.
0:26:01 > 0:26:07As well as fruit-eating birds, they attract all kinds of mammals
0:26:07 > 0:26:10monkeys, squirrels and gibbons.
0:26:31 > 0:26:37The rhinoceros hornbill, with its huge beak,
0:26:37 > 0:26:40has to be a bit of a juggler.
0:26:47 > 0:26:50Now comes the important part.
0:26:50 > 0:26:58Dozens of fruits containing hundreds of seeds are ferried miles away in the hornbill's crop.
0:26:59 > 0:27:03The flesh of the fruit will be digested
0:27:03 > 0:27:09and the seeds will be voided in a distant place in the forest.
0:27:09 > 0:27:16All forest canopies, however, do not have such a rich variety of fruit eaters as in Borneo.
0:27:16 > 0:27:22In New Guinea, there are very few mammals and no monkeys at all.
0:27:22 > 0:27:28The biggest creature on the ground is not an antelope or a great ape.
0:27:28 > 0:27:31It's a bird the cassowary.
0:27:31 > 0:27:38Both male and female cassowaries have vividly coloured wattles, and the similarity between them
0:27:38 > 0:27:42and the fruits may not be coincidence.
0:27:47 > 0:27:52The wattles serve as social signals between the birds.
0:27:52 > 0:27:58Did plants adopt the same colours to call the birds' attention to their fruit?
0:27:58 > 0:28:05Or did the cassowaries make themselves more attractive to their mates
0:28:05 > 0:28:10by reminding them of a good meal? No-one can say for sure.
0:28:10 > 0:28:18What is certain is that cassowaries have no difficulty finding objects with these colours among the leaves.
0:28:24 > 0:28:30Visual signals, however, have their limitations as advertisements.
0:28:30 > 0:28:37In thick forest, you just can't see them unless you are quite close.
0:28:37 > 0:28:43But there is another medium smell. It's less precise, but it works over greater distances.
0:28:43 > 0:28:48In Borneo, one fruit produces a smell so pungent
0:28:48 > 0:28:53that a sensitive nose can detect it from half a mile away.
0:28:53 > 0:29:01And some people like the taste of that fruit so much that they walk miles to find it.
0:29:01 > 0:29:04And so will others.
0:29:23 > 0:29:26This is it the famous durian.
0:29:37 > 0:29:45I have to say that the smell, to my nostrils at any rate, is fairly disgusting.
0:29:45 > 0:29:50Like an open sewer with just a dash of coal gas.
0:29:50 > 0:29:56That's the rind. It's the advertisement. This is the fruit.
0:29:56 > 0:29:59That's very different.
0:29:59 > 0:30:02It's really pretty good.
0:30:03 > 0:30:09A kind of... slimy caramel creme, perhaps, would describe it.
0:30:16 > 0:30:24But if all Europeans aren't instantly durian addicts, all orang-utan are.
0:31:15 > 0:31:22Animals may carry seeds for long distances in their stomachs,
0:31:22 > 0:31:25but most get rid of them at random.
0:31:25 > 0:31:30For some plants, that is simply not good enough.
0:31:32 > 0:31:38The trewia tree in the forests of Nepal has a particular problem.
0:31:38 > 0:31:42Their seeds cannot germinate in deep shade.
0:31:42 > 0:31:47They have to be taken into a clearing if they are to stand a chance
0:31:47 > 0:31:50and one animal will do that for them,
0:31:50 > 0:31:53the great Indian rhinoceros.
0:32:01 > 0:32:04It's so fond of these fruits
0:32:04 > 0:32:09that they're called, locally, 'rhino apples'.
0:32:09 > 0:32:16The rhinos usually feed in the forest during the heat of the day,
0:32:16 > 0:32:24but in the cool of the evening they habitually move out into open grasslands.
0:32:42 > 0:32:50The grasslands are created by monsoon floods that, every few years,
0:32:50 > 0:32:55wash away parts of the forest. Rhinos visit them for the rich grazing.
0:33:00 > 0:33:05And out here, on regularly used communal middens,
0:33:05 > 0:33:09they perform the last of their daily duties.
0:33:09 > 0:33:15And there, neatly deposited with a ration of fertilising manure,
0:33:15 > 0:33:18are the seeds of the trewia.
0:33:25 > 0:33:30So young trewias sprout on the rhinos' dunghills.
0:33:30 > 0:33:37Other trees will grow, and the forest will colonise the grasslands.
0:33:37 > 0:33:44Then the trewia fruit, once more, will have a problem, and rely on the rhino to solve it.
0:33:44 > 0:33:48Sadly, this magnificent animal
0:33:48 > 0:33:51is getting rarer and rarer.
0:33:51 > 0:33:58Over millions of years of evolution, the trewia tree has established a link with it.
0:33:58 > 0:34:02But if the great Indian rhinoceros becomes extinct,
0:34:02 > 0:34:09the trewia itself may disappear from the grasslands and riverbanks of southern Nepal.
0:34:17 > 0:34:25In Africa, elephants similarly have become crucial partners for acacias.
0:34:25 > 0:34:32That may seem surprising, for they are only too obviously great destroyers of acacias.
0:34:32 > 0:34:38For when other food is short, they will use their great strength
0:34:38 > 0:34:45to knock the trees down to eat their branches.
0:34:45 > 0:34:51But without elephants, some species of acacia would barely survive.
0:34:51 > 0:34:55Lots of animals come to feed on acacias.
0:35:02 > 0:35:06Inside the pods, the seeds are threatened
0:35:06 > 0:35:10by serious enemies. These beetle grubs hatched from eggs
0:35:10 > 0:35:13injected into the pods.
0:35:15 > 0:35:20They will now eat all the seeds unless they are stopped.
0:35:20 > 0:35:25Monkeys eat pods, seeds and grubs chewing it all thoroughly.
0:35:25 > 0:35:31The acacia gets little benefit from providing THEM with meals.
0:35:34 > 0:35:37But elephants are different.
0:35:39 > 0:35:45They greatly relish the seed pods which are highly nutritious.
0:35:45 > 0:35:48They go to considerable trouble
0:35:48 > 0:35:52to pick up these fiddly little things.
0:35:52 > 0:35:58But they don't grind up their food into such a fine mash as monkeys do.
0:36:00 > 0:36:03And having fed, they move on.
0:36:18 > 0:36:25They may walk for several miles before, having digested their meals, getting rid of the remains.
0:36:38 > 0:36:41These acacia seeds,
0:36:41 > 0:36:47have spent at least 24 hours inside an elephant's stomach.
0:36:47 > 0:36:51This has killed stone dead those beetle grubs.
0:36:51 > 0:36:56The elephant's digestive juices have disinfected these seeds
0:36:56 > 0:37:03just as efficiently as a farmer dressing his seeds with insecticides.
0:37:12 > 0:37:17Ninety percent of acacia seeds in elephant dung germinate.
0:37:17 > 0:37:24Those in pods that are left uneaten on the ground will be killed by beetle grubs.
0:37:24 > 0:37:32So acacia seeds eaten by an elephant have not merely been transported, but saved from near-certain death.
0:37:36 > 0:37:43Some seeds, however, are so well-protected that it seems that nothing could eat them.
0:37:43 > 0:37:47These capsules, as hard as cannon-balls,
0:37:47 > 0:37:52contain the individual seeds the nuts
0:37:52 > 0:37:55of the Brazil-nut tree.
0:38:17 > 0:38:22Even a fall of a couple of hundred feet doesn't crack them.
0:38:22 > 0:38:28Only one animal has the equipment to open them the agouti.
0:38:44 > 0:38:52The agouti has two pairs of front teeth that are as sharp as chisels
0:38:52 > 0:38:59and they enable it to gnaw a hole into the capsule and get at the seeds.
0:39:05 > 0:39:10But the Brazil-nut tree protects its seeds from the only animal
0:39:10 > 0:39:13that has penetrated its armour.
0:39:13 > 0:39:21It presents it with 15 or 20 nuts far more than an individual agouti could eat in one sitting.
0:39:21 > 0:39:29And the agouti has a habit which suits the Brazil nut. It buries what it can't eat, for later.
0:39:29 > 0:39:34What it doesn't have is a perfect memory. It loses track.
0:39:34 > 0:39:40And a significant proportion of the nuts survive to sprout.
0:39:40 > 0:39:47The Alpine nutcracker a kind of crow is an even more obliging partner for the arolla pine.
0:39:53 > 0:40:00The bird knows exactly how to open the cones and pick out the ripe seeds.
0:40:09 > 0:40:17Each one is swallowed, but it doesn't go into the stomach. It's stored in the crop,
0:40:17 > 0:40:20while the bird tackles the next.
0:40:26 > 0:40:34Then, like the agouti, the bird hides them, one by one, as provisions for hard times.
0:40:37 > 0:40:44But, unlike the agouti, it carries the seeds away from the forest onto open ground,
0:40:44 > 0:40:50perhaps because there it can more easily memorise landmarks
0:40:50 > 0:40:54to help it find the seeds again months later.
0:40:54 > 0:40:58These places suit the young trees very well.
0:41:05 > 0:41:10One by one, the bird brings them up from its crop.
0:41:10 > 0:41:16It buries them at a depth that suits the seed.
0:41:16 > 0:41:21Then it fills in the hole to conceal its treasure.
0:41:25 > 0:41:31So the seeds of the arolla pine are carried far from the parent tree
0:41:31 > 0:41:38and planted with all the care that a human forester might give them,
0:41:38 > 0:41:41not only in high alpine meadows,
0:41:41 > 0:41:46but even high up on the mountain ridges.
0:41:48 > 0:41:53Yet some plants succeed in reaching seemingly inaccessible sites
0:41:53 > 0:41:56without the help of any animal
0:41:56 > 0:41:59and entirely by their own exertions.
0:42:02 > 0:42:09A crack in a wall fifty feet above the ground is not easy to reach.
0:42:09 > 0:42:14But the ivy-leaved toadflax, nonetheless, manages to get there.
0:42:14 > 0:42:21It has no suckers like Virginia creeper or clinging roots like ivy.
0:42:21 > 0:42:27Its colonies manage to advance up the wall, from crack to crack,
0:42:27 > 0:42:30in an entirely different way.
0:42:30 > 0:42:38As the petals fall off, the seeds in the capsule beneath begin to develop.
0:42:38 > 0:42:43Then the toadflax behaves in a most remarkable way.
0:42:43 > 0:42:49It finds the nearest crack and plants its seeds itself.
0:42:53 > 0:42:57So, plants manage to get their seeds
0:42:57 > 0:43:03to the best places to germinate. But what is the best time?
0:43:03 > 0:43:08These protea growing here on the southern tip of Africa
0:43:08 > 0:43:14have had their seeds inside the seed pods for several years now.
0:43:14 > 0:43:19The time to release them is about to arrive.
0:43:34 > 0:43:41The several species of protea growing here all depend upon the arrival of seasonal fires.
0:44:10 > 0:44:16The fire has killed all the adult plants on this land,
0:44:16 > 0:44:24so this is an excellent time for seeds to germinate. There are no established competitors.
0:44:24 > 0:44:29In fact, it's the ONLY time protea seeds can germinate,
0:44:29 > 0:44:36because these seed heads have to be burnt to release their seeds.
0:44:36 > 0:44:40An hour or so after scorching, the heads open.
0:45:09 > 0:45:12All around lies a rich ash,
0:45:12 > 0:45:17which makes a nutritious bed for the seeds.
0:45:17 > 0:45:23Protea seeds can remain inert and apparently lifeless for many years
0:45:23 > 0:45:31and then spring into life when conditions are right. Some will die after 2 or 3 years.
0:45:31 > 0:45:36But others are able to remain alive for astonishing periods.
0:45:36 > 0:45:44One of the most remarkable examples comes from an archaeological site here in Japan.
0:45:44 > 0:45:49Two thousand years ago a small settlement,
0:45:49 > 0:45:55with buildings like these, stood at a place called Asada.
0:46:01 > 0:46:06The people who lived here in such houses
0:46:06 > 0:46:14had only just begun to master the art of working metal. They also knew how to plant rice.
0:46:14 > 0:46:18They stored their harvest in small pits.
0:46:19 > 0:46:25In one of those pits they found some seeds, like these.
0:46:25 > 0:46:29These are rice grains obviously dead.
0:46:29 > 0:46:32But this is a magnolia seed.
0:46:34 > 0:46:41Scientists took away that strange, ancient seed, planted it and it grew.
0:46:41 > 0:46:49At first it looked like Magnolia kobus, the wild species that still grows in Japanese woods.
0:46:50 > 0:46:52Then, in its tenth year,
0:46:52 > 0:47:00it produced its first flower buds. These, when they opened, would reveal exactly what it was.
0:47:14 > 0:47:19Magnolia kobus today, typically, has six petals on its flowers.
0:47:19 > 0:47:23But this flower has an extra petal seven.
0:47:23 > 0:47:25And this has eight.
0:47:25 > 0:47:33Is this a consequence of its long sleep, or were all Magnolia kobus 2,000 years ago variable like this?
0:47:33 > 0:47:39Or could it be that this is an ancient species
0:47:39 > 0:47:43that has survived as that one lone seed?
0:47:43 > 0:47:48It's too early to know the answer to those questions,
0:47:48 > 0:47:53but this is surely a marvellous example of the fact that plant seeds
0:47:53 > 0:48:00are not only extraordinary travellers in space, but incomparable travellers in time.
0:48:23 > 0:48:28Subtitles by Wilma Campbell BBC Scotland 1995