Farrant became interested in resurrection plants as a child when she saw a "dead" plant 'come back to life' after a rain fall.

Certain resurrection plants have long been sold in their dry, "lifeless" form as curiosities.

Resurrection plants can also switch these genes on in their leaves and roots whenever drought occurs."

The genus Borya contains tree-like species which behave as "resurrection plants".

Under moist conditions the brown balls become green, because of which these are also known as resurrection plants (as in Selaginella bryopteris).

Selaginella lepidophylla is easily confused with Anastatica: both species are resurrection plants and form tumbleweeds, and they share the common name "rose of Jericho".

Some exceptions are the seeds of many vascular plants, the resurrection plants such as Selaginella lepidophylla and aerophytes including some species of Tillandsia.

A few species of Selaginella are desert plants known as "resurrection plants", because they curl up in a tight, brown or reddish ball during dry times, and uncurl and turn green in the presence of moisture.

Jill Farrant, professor of molecular and cell biology at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, is a leading expert on resurrection plants, which 'come back to life' from a desiccated, seemingly dead state when they are rehydrated.

Like some mosses, liverworts, ferns, and a few "resurrection plants", upon desiccation, lichens enter a metabolic suspension or stasis (known as cryptobiosis) in which the cells of the lichen symbionts are dehydrated to a degree that halts most biochemical activity.

The high-temperature tolerance of the desiccation-tolerant pteridophyte Selaginella lepidophylla (Hook.

Selaginella lepidophylla (syn.

In the spikemoss Selaginella lepidophylla, dispersal is achieved in part by an unusual type of diaspore, a tumbleweed.

Selaginella lepidophylla (Hook, and Grev.)

The effects of desiccation rate on enzyme and protein-synthesis dynamics in the desiccation-tolerant pteridophyte Selaginella lepidophylla (Hook.

Very similar in habit to Anastatica, but practically unrelated, are the spore-bearing Selaginella lepidophylla (a lycopod) and earthstar mushroom family (Geastraceae).

In plant kingdom, though trehalose has been reported from several pteridophytes including Selaginella lepidophylla and Botrychium lunaria; the sugar is rare in vascular plants and reported only in ripening fruits of several members of Apiaceae and in the leaves of the desiccation-tolerant angiosperm Myrothamnus flabellifolius .