Why does aspirin prolong the life of cut flowers?

Answer 1

Aspirin contains salicylic acid which is a compound that is released by plants when they are under pathogen attack. (The hypersensitive response (HR)). Salicylic acid does a number of things in this process. One of them is that it inhibits the production of ethylene gas. Ethyene gas is key to the ripening process. ( Think of putting an apple in to a bag of green bananas to make them ripen faster). So by reducing ethyene the flower lasts longer.

Hope this helps

Stooleo

Answer 2

I always thought that because it changed the pH of the water, less bacteria grew and the flowers lasted longer.