Jan 26 2009
Fried Banana Leaves
The leaves on our banana “trees” (not really trees–they failed the botonists’ test and must ride the plant bus) got burned last week. Not by heat but by frost.
How do I explain it? No, it wasn’t the work of anti-phallic-fruit nano-demons. As I thought, cold messing with water molecules is the culprit.
Frost damage in plants results from the liquid inside individual cells freezing and forming ice crystals. The crystals then rupture the tough cell walls. When the cell walls open the fluid inside will not be contained so when the ice melts the fluids simply drain out causing the classic ‘cooked spinach’, wilted look. [source]
