To safeguard crops from increasing droughts, scientists are turning to the genetics of a unique group of plants capable of surviving extended dry periods and regrowing in just hours.

Jill Farrant first observed these remarkable plants as a child in 1970s South Africa, when she saw them seemingly come back to life after appearing to be dead. These plants, as Farrant later discovered, can endure months without water. Their leaves dry out, becoming brittle and brown, but once watered, they rapidly regain their green color within hours. In less than a day, they are restored to their full form and can resume photosynthesis.

While this “resurrection” ability is common in non-flowering plants like mosses and ferns, these particular plants belong to the angiosperms, or flowering plants, which include most trees, as well as fruit- and seed-bearing crops. Yet, out of 352,000 known flowering plant species, only 240 are classified as resurrection plants. These plants are scattered across the globe, from South Africa to Australia and South America, and although they are often unrelated, they each evolved the ability to survive drought independently. Surprisingly, the mechanisms behind their survival strategies are strikingly similar, as if an ancient set of genetic tools has been unlocked to help them withstand extreme dryness.

Farrant, now a professor of desiccation tolerance at the University of Cape Town, has dedicated over 30 years to studying these resilient plants. Together with other researchers, she believes the drought-resistant traits found in these plants could hold the key to adapting agriculture for the challenges of climate change.

The ability of these plants to go without water for months may seem like something out of science fiction. Most plants perish when they lose 10-30% of their water. Resurrection plants, however, can survive water loss of up to 95%.

But it’s not just their ability to withstand drought that makes them so valuable, according to Carlos Messina, a maize scientist at the University of Florida. It's also the way these plants regrow after drought conditions. While maize may survive a drought, he notes, it doesn't fully recover after rehydration. "When maize rehydrates, its leaf structure doesn’t return to normal, and the flow of CO2 and water is disrupted," he explains, meaning growth is compromised long after the drought ends.

Resurrection plants, on the other hand, return to their pre-drought form, regaining their original leaf architecture. "If we can develop maize that does the same, it would be incredible," Messina says. "We could restore productivity much faster."