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Extreme speeds

The plant world lives in a completely different timeframe to ourselves, which is why everything always looks calm and peaceful. In fact there's a war going on, it's just that we can't see it. By squeezing weeks into seconds we see plants locked in a battle for survival, competeing for sunlight, space and the attention of insects. But plants don't just do slow - that's just a timescale we have imposed onto them. When plants need something to happen fast, they can do just that. The himalayan balsam can fire out seeds at an astonishing 6 metres a second, aggressively flinging them in all directions. Far enough in fact, to make sure its own patch is free from competition.

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Duration:

2 minutes

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