In high-mountain habitats, summer frost events can have negative consequences for plant fitness. Despite this, most studies have evaluated the consequences of frosts for vegetative structures of perennial plants, and neither for leaves nor for flowers of annual plants. We hypothesize that the degree of freezing resistance of flowers and leaves of a species depends on its life-history strategy (LHS), and is probably the consequence of a trade-off between growth/reproduction and the cost of the freezing resistance. Specifically, flowers and leaves of short-lived annual species should be less freezing resistant than those of perennial plant species. We compared the freezing resistance of flowers and leaves of 10 annual and 12 perennial plant species from the Andes of central Chile using the electrolyte leakage method. Temperature damage for 50% tissue (LT₅₀) of annual species was − 9.6 °C in flowers and − 11.9 °C in leaves. In perennial species, LT₅₀ was similar in flowers (− 12.3 °C) and leaves (− 12.5 °C). Despite that, these differences were not significant (except the flowers of annual species), we found remarkable differences between LHS when freezing resistance was analyzed species by species. Like this, 58% and 83% of perennial species resist temperatures ≤ − 10 °C in their flowers and leaves, respectively, compared with only 30% and 40% of annual species. Additionally, in most of the species, the freezing resistance of leaves was greater than that of flowers, with this proportion being greater in annual (58%) than in perennial species (43%). Thus, we concluded that the degree of freezing resistance depends on the LHS, such that annual species, which are less freezing resistant than perennial species, have an infrequent occurrence and a distribution restricted to low elevation in high-mountain habitats.

在高山山区的生境中，夏季的霜冻事件可能会对植物适应性产生负面影响。尽管如此，大多数研究仍评估了霜冻对多年生植物营养结构的影响，而对一年生植物的叶子和花朵均没有影响。我们假设一个物种的花朵和叶子的抗冻性程度取决于其生活史策略（LHS），并且可能是在生长/繁殖与抗冻性成本之间进行权衡的结果。特别是，短寿命一年生物种的花朵和叶子应比多年生植物物种的花朵和叶子具有更低的抗冻性。我们使用电解质泄漏法比较了智利中部安第斯山脉的10种一年生和12种多年生植物的花朵和叶子的抗冻性。₅₀％的一年生物种的花是-9.6°C，叶子是-11.9°C。在多年生物种中，LT ₅₀在花朵（− 12.3°C）和叶子（− 12.5°C）中相似。尽管如此，这些差异并不明显（一年生花除外），但当按物种对耐冻性进行分析时，我们发现LHS之间存在显着差异。这样，分别有58％和83％的多年生物种在其花朵和叶子中的耐温度≤− 10°C，而一年生物种只有30％和40％。此外，在大多数物种中，叶片的抗冻性大于花朵，其比例每年（58％）高于多年生（43％）。因此，我们得出的结论是，抗冻性的程度取决于LHS，因此，一年生物种的抗冻性要比多年生物种低，