by Mollie McNeel
If a gardener told you that her plants had died and had come back to life years later, you might think she had gone crazy. But actually, she may be on to something.
Some fully-grown plants can “hibernate” in the soil for up to 20 years, researchers from the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC) discovered in a study published in the May issue of Ecology Letters.
The so-called “Rip Van Winkle” plants, nicknamed after the fictional character who slept for two decades, include many species of orchids and some ferns.