Marescence

Marcescence is the withering and persistence of plant organs that normally are shed, and is a term most commonly applied to plant leaves.

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One can imagine an intelligent amoeba with a good memory. As time progresses the amoeba is constantly splitting, each time the resulting amoebas having the same memories as the parent. Our amoeba hence does not have a life line, but a life tree.… It becomes simply a matter of terminology as to whether they should be thought of as the same amoeba or not, or whether the phrase “the amoeba” should be reserved for the whole ensemble.