[neilep (OP)]

Hi, I'm a bloke and I went through puberty ?

but what about my plant cousins ?...do they ?

Can you give me an example of a plants life cycle highlighting the pubescent stage ?

[JimBob]

You can tell - they develope pimples.

[neilep (OP)]

You can tell - they develope pimples.

Really ?....LOL...I think I also have an African Violet that is going through emotional turmoil too...it's quite rebellious !!

[Karen W.]

 What are it's symptoms? Have you taken care to give it the proper nourishment? Is it underfed or Thirsty? Do you tend to it regularly or let it get too dry!! They can be tempermental flowers but they are quite beautiful if you are careful with them!

[chris]

I'm not sure about puberty, but plants certainly have a body clock (circadian clock). This is the focus of Cambridge researcher Alex Webb, who's been considering the implications of trying to grow Earth-adapted plants on space-rockets or foreign planets. Under these conditions the day-length will be considerably different, potentially compromising plant growth. He joined us on the Naked Scientists programme in March to talk about this. Here's a link to the show. He is on towards the end.

http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/shows/2006.03.05.htm

Chris

[WylieE]

Well, I guess it depends on your definition of puberty. . .but if you are thinking that awkward stage of switching form a kid to an adult, hormones going crazy, suddenly realizing that cooties may not be the only thing the opposite sex has to offer- then you could probably say plants go through a similar sort of thing.
  Plants switch from a vegetative state to a reproductive state.   When this transition happens depends on a lot of different factors including the type of plant, stresses, day-length (the circadian clock Dr. Chris was talking about comes into play here), to name just a few.  There is a lot of signaling occurring in plants to make sure that they produce seeds only when it will be favorable for them to succeed.     
  In most plants when this decision is made to start reproducing the “in-between” period between that decision and the ability to successfully reproduce is very short.  Unlike humans, there’s not much need to learn social graces and develop community ties, once produced, the offspring are on their own and get no help from their parents.  So it is important for a plant to become a seed producing machine as fast as possible so the offspring are ready while conditions are still favorable.  So for these plants the “puberty period” when they are going through all sorts of changes that make them reproductive are very short.  I guess it’s the extreme case of waking up in the morning and realizing “Hey, I have buds.”
Of course there are some exceptions to this, one being trees. . .Poplar for example can stay in a juvenile period for a very long time,  for years and years.  Also trees can have one branch that flowers (reproductive state) and others that are non flowering – All in all I guess this isn’t too different from a teenage boy – one body part thinking of nothing but reproduction and the others not thinking about it at all. 
Colleen

[chris]

Mmm. My brother must have some popular DNA in his genetic make up then...! (Sorry Richard!)

[tony6789]

lol they mite get acne too lol