Draft:Driptip

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Drip-tip (Plural: Drip-tips) or Driptip is a compound word commonly used in botanyreferring to a long, narrow elongated leaf apex (the tip). Drip-tips come in various shapes, often termed acuminate (meaning tapering point), caudate (tail-like) and cuspidate (sharp-pointed), although other adjectives (attenuate, apiculate, mucronate, aristate etc.) are used occasionally as well. They constitute a widespread phenomenon in rainforest and humid regions, as they prevent water loss, occurrence of harmful fungi and bacteria and clogging of stomata (reducing photosynthesis). While prominent in tropical regions they can, however, be found in different locations — although they often differ in evolutionary drivers and adaptive value.^[1][2]

J.C. Willis, a famous Anglo-Saxon botanist, first coined the term in his book "A dictionary of the flowering plants and Ferns". He defines drip tips as a "long acuminate apex" from which "the rain drips off rapidly after a shower". He additionally attributed drip-tips to certain species of Begonia L., Begoniaceae and Acer L., Aceraceae (the genus of maples, today known as Sapindaceae).^[3]

Willis also correctly notes that "There is a correlation between length of tip and wetness of climate.", providing a direct empirical correlation.

The purpose of the drip-tip was first scientifically described by Andreas Franz Wilhelm Schimper, a year later, a German botanist, during the late 19th and early 20th century, in his magnum opus Pflanzengeographie auf physiologischer Grundlage (eng. Plant-Geography Upon A Physiological Basis), in which he notes:

"In many hygrophytes, especially those of damp tropical forests, adaptation in the construction of the thin leaf-surfaces is evident. Where the plant is liable to heavy rainfall the leaves have often the long 'dripping point,' by means of which water is soon drained off"^[4]

His description primarily focused on the evolutionary solution to superfluous and excessive water. He also notes the need for evaporation of water, suggesting a possible (and still consensual) explanation for the evolutionary selection towards driptips.

In the second half of the 20th century, the term drip-tip was further expanded on scientifically and explored more thoroughly. Tropical Botanists like P. W. Richards in his work The tropical rain forest studied the relation of their (the driptips') prevalence in darker, humid understories contrarily to their absence in the upper canopy. Scientists like G. B. Williamson and Steven P. Hubbell granted further research on the topic.

The construction of drip-tips serves the primary goal of channeling water off the leaf as, inversely, an accumulation of water on the leaf would provide a natural habitat for many fungi (such as Puccinia, Mildew or Botrytis) and plant-pathogenic bacteria such as Pseudomonas. Additionally, water clogs the leaf's pores (the stomata), which causes a local disability to exchange gas diffusively. As Carbon Dioxide (${\displaystyle CO_{2}}$) is needed for photosynthesis, it is reduced notably. Accumulated water also evaporates after some time and changes its state instead of entering the root system.^[5][6]

Morphologically they feature a concave-to-convex curvature inversion at the tip of the leaf. This serves two things. Firstly, it increases the drainage by allowing for the agglomeration of droplets, thus minimizing surface tension; secondly, it decreases the size of the droplets from the tip. The drip-tip does this by capitalizing on gravity to overcome adhesion to the surface, which accelerates the moment a droplet detaches from the other molecules. By increasing drainage, the leaf guarantees less time of evaporation and water build-up; by increasing the rate of singular drops, it appeases soil erosion. Tropical soils (Ferralsols and Laterite Soils) are very prone to erosion and rather vulnerable. The soil has then time to absorb the water better. This is further supported by the transition of a concave shape at the start of the driptip, that draws water together, and the convex shape at the end of the apex, that guarantees the adhesion between the surface and water molecules is minimal.^[7][8]

The mentioned mechanisms are further supported by the waxy hydrophobic cuticle that forces the water to bead up.^[9]