08-13-2016—Plants of Star Trek (Part 1)

Star Trek Beyond was released last month, and I went to see it recently. Like Star Trek Into Darkness, Beyond also has an assembly of interesting plant species. It got me reminiscing about the alien landscapes of the original tv show and inspired me to put together a series of posts on the plants of Star Trek. Purple is a dominant color of alien vegetation in the 1960s Star Trek. Set designers applied purple spray paint with abandon, transforming earthbound plants into their xenomorphic equivalents.

S1E1 Pilot: The Cage: Tumbleweed (Salsola sp.) gets the spray can treatment

S2E12 The Deadly Years: Not sure what plant these twigs are from, but liberal dose of purple paint applied

S2E13 Obsession: It makes my heart shrivel to see a spray painted Joshua tree (Yucca brevifolia)

S2E13 Obsession: More purple desert flora; ocotillo (Fouquieria splendens) is striking in any color

S2E16 The Gamesters of Triskelion: Just out for a jog in the purple grasses; this shot makes me long for a true lavender-colored Earth grass meadow to run through

Whether by accident or not, Star Trek set designers were onto something. Studies of Archaea, an ancient group of microbes, has led to the discovery of photosynthetic retinal pigments that may have predated chlorophyll pigments (Extreme Microbes). Retinal imparts a violet hue to the microorganisms that contain it. Retinal-based primitive microbes might have dominated early Earth, tinting biological hotspots on the planet a distinctive purple color (Purple Earth hypothesis). However, environmental pressures eventually favored the green chlorophyll-containing microbes. Who knows what plants would look like if they had evolved from retinal containing organisms (or if they would exist at all).

Possibly something like this?:

S3E7 Day of the Dove: The alien plant cousin to a mullet—Restio on top, barnacle? on bottom

Purple is also a naturally occurring color in today's Earth plant foliage, although uncommon. Purple leafed plants contain higher concentrations of anthocyanin than chlorophyll. Anthocyanin is not a photosynthetic pigment like retinal, but a flavonoid pigment that carries out other functions (still an active area of research). Anthrocyanins didn't enter the scene until later in plant history, largely after the appearance of seed producing plants (The Evolution of Flavonoids and Their Genes).

Panicum virgatum ‘Cheyenne Sky,’ Tradescantia pallida, Echeveria 'Dark Prince'

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Go to Plants of Star Trek (Part 2)
Go to Plants of Star Trek (Part 3)