Plants that can survive the harsh weather conditions and how?

Do you often feel that you only bring in plants at home to simply kill them! Yes, most plant lovers can relate to this feeling where the moment they get a plant at home, it starts struggling to survive and sustain. Well, plants don't have the luxury of packing up and moving when the weather turns nasty. While animals can run for cover, migrate south, or burrow underground, a plant has to stand its ground and take whatever the sky throws at it. Over millions of years, some species have figured out clever tricks to survive places that would kill almost anything else. From baking deserts to frozen tundras, here is how nature's toughest survivors pull it off.

The Saguaro CactusOut in the Sonoran Desert, summer temperatures regularly blast past 115°F (46°C), and rain might not fall for months. Yet the saguaro cactus grows as tall as a four-story building and can live for well over a century. Instead of broad leaves that lose moisture to the dry air, the saguaro uses sharp spines. These spines cast tiny shadows on the plant's green skin and break up hot desert winds so water doesn't evaporate as quickly.

Its real secret, though, is accordion-like pleats running down its trunk. When a rare desert rainstorm hits, a network of shallow roots just inches below the soil drinks up water fast. The cactus swells up like a giant sponge, holding thousands of gallons of water to sip on until the next storm rolls through.

Welwitschia MirabilisIf you visit the Namib Desert in southern Africa, you might stumble across something that looks like a pile of shredded green ribbons sitting on the sand. That is Welwitschia mirabilis, and some of these plants have been alive for over 1,500 years. Rainfall in the Namib is practically nonexistent -- sometimes less than an inch a year. Rather than waiting for rain, Welwitschia relies on thick morning fog rolling in from the Atlantic Ocean. The plant grows only two leaves during its entire life, which split and fray over the centuries. Tiny pores on those leathery leaves open up just in time to catch the coastal mist, funneling moisture straight down to its roots before the sun burns the fog away.Antarctic Hair GrassAntarctica is the coldest, windiest place on Earth, and almost nothing with roots can handle it. Antarctic hair grass (Deschampsia antarctica) is one of only two flowering plants tough enough to call the frozen continent home.Normally, when temperatures drop below freezing, ice crystals form inside plant cells and shred them from the inside out. Antarctic hair grass dodges this by packing its cells with special sugars and proteins that act like natural antifreeze. Even when snow buries it for months, the grass doesn't die. It simply pauses its growth, keeps its cells intact, and starts photosynthesizing the very second the summer sun melts the snow away.The Resurrection PlantMost houseplants turn brown and die if you forget to water them for two weeks. The resurrection plant (Selaginella lepidophylla), native to the Chihuahuan Desert, can lose up to 95 percent of its water and bounce right back to life. During a brutal drought, it curls its stems inward into a tight, dry brown ball. Looking at it, you would swear it was dead -- and it can stay in that dormant state for years. While curled up, the plant replaces the water in its cells with a special sugar called trehalose, which holds its internal machinery together in a glass-like state. The moment rain hits it, the ball uncurls, turns bright green within hours, and goes right back to growing like nothing ever happened.Red MangrovesSaltwater is poison to almost every land plant because it pulls fresh water right out of their roots. Red mangroves, however, grow right in the middle of tropical coastlines where ocean tides crash over them twice a day. They survive by acting like living desalination machines. Their tangled stilt roots have specialized membranes that block roughly 90 percent of the salt from ever entering the plant when they drink seawater.

Any extra salt that sneaks past the roots gets sent straight to old, yellowing leaves. Once a leaf is packed full of salt, the mangrove simply drops it into the water, ridding itself of the excess before it can do any harm.

Bristlecone pinesHigh up in the White Mountains of California, nearly 11,000 feet above sea level, ancient bristlecone pines cling to rocky slopes battered by freezing winds and poor soil. Some of these trees are nearly 5,000 years old. Their survival strategy is extreme patience. Because the growing season at that altitude lasts only a few weeks each summer, bristlecone pines grow less than a hundredth of an inch in width per year. That ultra-slow growth creates wood so dense and packed with resin that insects, fungi, and rot can barely touch it. Even if lightning or wind strips away ninety percent of a tree's bark, a single narrow strip of living wood can keep the rest of the tree alive for centuries more.