I Ate Sunshine for Breakfast: A Celebration of Plants Around the World
WHY DO PLANTS MATTER Every single day and in every single way we use plants From the food we eat and the cars we drive to the medicines we take and the clothes we wear we would not be able to live without plants At this very moment you are holding a book made from plants And not just one plant many plants The pages and covers of this book are made from a mixture of two types of tree birch Betula and pine Pinus The words you are reading are printed with ink made from soybeans Glycine max and linseed flax oil Linum usitatissimum Plants touch almost every aspect of our lives There are about 428,000 species of plants growing on our amazing planet and 34,000 of these have recorded benefits Many people spend years researching plants and their uses This scientific study is called ethnobotany In the pages of this book you’ll learn exactly what plants are how they work and all the ingenious ways you use plants every day Along the way there are plenty of cool plant experiments to try for yourself Soybean 10
Pine Silver birch A NOTE ON PLANT NAMES This book gives both the common and scientific names of plants The scientific name shown in italics below helps us know exactly which plant we’re talking about Its genus name comes first and is like a family name followed by its species name which is like a first name like this Flax Silver birch Betula pendula 11
WHAT IS A PLANT A plant is a living thing that usually grows in a permanent place The plant kingdom is so varied that it includes microscopic algae and pretty flowers right up to huge trees that can live for thousands of years It survives by taking in water H2O and nutrients through its roots and breathing in carbon dioxide CO2 through its leaves Using sunlight energy a plant can also make sugary food in a process known as photosynthesis Plants also need oxygen to survive They use it to break down their food which helps them grow see pages 16-17 This is a process called respiration 12
DID YOU KNOW It takes just 500 seconds for the Sun’s energy to reach Earth To reach the Sun’s surface from its core it takes a staggering 20,000 years
