TABLE OF CONTENT S What is a Plant 4 The Size of Plants 5 How Plants Live 5 Classifying the Plant World 7 The Parts of Plants 9 Plant Cells 9 Vegetative Parts 11 Reproductive Parts 16 How Plants Grow 21 The Life Cycle of Plants 21 Plant Reproduction 22 Photosynthesis 24 Types of Plants 27 Algae 28 Fungi 30 Mosses and Liverworts 33 Ferns 35 Flowering Plants 36 Shrubs 38 Vines 39 Trees 41 Herbs 45 Grasses 47 Plant Movements and Adaptations 49 Plant Movements 49 Plant Adaptations 50 How We Use Plants 53 Shelter and Decoration 53 Scientific Exploration With Plants 54 Plants as Food 56 Other Plant Products 58 People Learn From Plants 59 Why Study Plants 59
PLANT LIFE Plants also need water to carry out photosynthesis Plant cells are more angular in shape than animal cells What Is a Plant T N A L P A S I T A H W Plants and animals are living things or organisms Plants make it possible for all the other living things to exist on planet Earth While plants are similar to animals in some ways they are unlike animals in many more ways Plants like animals are made up of cells Most plant cells contain a green pigment called chlorophyll Animal cells do not Chlorophyll makes it possible for most plants to absorb energy from sunlight Using a cell process called photosynthesis plants use that energy along with water and carbon dioxide molecules to make food substances and release oxygen Plants provide all the food and oxygen that animals including people depend on Fungi are not considered to be plants They have no chlorophyll They digest dead things and absorb nutrients from them These saprotrophs are nature’s recyclers While mushrooms resemble plants they are actually in the fungi kingdom 4
PLANT LIFE The Size of Plants Unless you use a microscope some tiny plants such as some algae are invisible Other plants such as giant Sequoia trees are hundreds of feet tall Enormous groves of Aspen trees are hundreds of feet wide How Plants Live Many types of plants grow together in forest grassland desert or aquatic ecosystems Mosses hug the ground in dense mats Vines climb up and over other plants and objects Some plants are very small and only seen when magnified More than half of the world’s plant species live in the rainforest Molds and fungi prefer dark moist places where there is dead stuff for them to digest and absorb Soil is loaded with them So are your sneakers You may even see them in your refrigerator on food that has been in there too long Sequoias can grow up to 379 1 feet 115 5 m in height and 23 feet 7 m in diameter at the base Mold is used to produce some of our foods W H A T I S A P L A N T 5
6 PLANT LIFE W H A T I S A P L A N T Some aquatic plants live in watery places with their leaves floating on the surface Desert plants live for long periods without any water at all Flowering plants are the most common but many such as mosses and ferns do not have flowers Evergreen trees pine spruce fir hemlock and cedar all have cones instead of flowers Though most plants grow in the wild people all over the Earth grow and cultivate a large variety of plants Some are food plants like rice wheat and corn We grow other crops for the beauty of their forms and colors of their flowers We also value plants for the healthful substances they produce or just the comfort of having them around The lily pad’s long stem anchors it to the bottom of the pond The seeds of an evergreen tree are produced in its cones Some of the rice we eat might be grown in this field in Bali Indonesia organism OR-guh-niz-uhm a living plant or animal chlorophyll KLOR-uh-fil the green substance in plants that uses light to make food from carbon dioxide and water photosynthesis foh-toh-SIN-thuh-siss a chemical process in green plants that makes food and releases oxygen from carbon dioxide water and sunlight energy
