Plants
Plantae
EOL Text
You see them every day. You eat them. You wear them. You live in buildings made of them. In fact, plants, or members of the kingdom Plantae, are found everywhere in the world10, and we simply would not be able to live without them(11). The approximately 250,000 to 380,000 currently-known plant species (2,7,8,11) include two main groups: some of the primarily water-dwelling organisms called green algae (specifically a group known as the charophyte algae12), and the embryophytes or land plants which evolved from green algae (1,12,14). A wider definition of plants that is sometimes used also includes the rest of the green algae as well as other types of algae known as red algae and glaucophyte algae (9,14.). The major subset of plants called land plants is divided into two main groups itself: nonvascular plants (those that don’t have special systems allowing them to transport water and nutrients inside their bodies; these plants include mosses, hornworts, and liverworts(5,7); and vascular plants (those that do have such transport systems; these include some more familiar groups including the largest plant group, the flowering plants(14). While all organisms are made up of cells, plants have a special wall around each of their cells built out of a carbohydrate called cellulose (7) that makes them especially strong and firm (6). Unlike most other forms of life, most plants produce their own food through a complicated process called photosynthesis (9), in which they soak up sunlight, usually with their leaves, and use it to turn carbon dioxide combined with water into energy-rich sugars (3,15). Through this process, plants have an extremely important effect on the environment and the climate—they remove carbon dioxide, a gas that contributes to global warming, from the air (13), and at the same time release oxygen, which is essential to the survival of animals, plants, protists, and many bacteria (3,4,15). Plants also provide food and shelter for many kinds of organisms, and we humans rely on them directly for grains, vegetables, fruits, wood, paper, clothing, and many medicines (8,11). In the future, they may be useful as sources for new medicines (8) and other products (6), as well as for emerging fuels that are renewable and more environmentally-friendly (6). For all of these reasons and more, it is vital that we protect plants around the world (2,8,11).
License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ |
Rights holder/Author | Noah Weisz, Noah Weisz |
Source | No source database. |
Stems resist buckling: plants
The stems of many plants resist buckling using low-density foam cores.
"Anyone who has squashed an empty metal can knows about the second form of buckling; it's called 'local buckling' or 'Brazier buckling...Local buckling does occur in biological columns--it's certainly involved in the lodging of slender crop plants in wind storms, and it can be deliberately induced in any dandelion stem. A low-density foam core reduces susceptibility, and many plants (but not dandelions!) have such cores." (Vogel 2003:378)
Learn more about this functional adaptation.
- Steven Vogel. 2003. Comparative Biomechanics: Life's Physical World. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 580 p.
License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/ |
Rights holder/Author | (c) 2008-2009 The Biomimicry Institute |
Source | http://www.asknature.org/strategy/f3feb0990b10d2cfc8084346bf05eaf2 |
Vascular systems transport fluids and solutes: plants
Vascular systems of plants transport fluids and solutes by creating bars of tension by capillary action in leaves to pull water out of the soil and through the plant.
"Vascular structures are the central element of nearly all biological tissues, allowing for efficient convective transport of fluid and solute to all parts of the tissue from a centralized source. Abraham Stroock and colleagues from the Dept. of Biomedical Engineering at Cornell are developing synthetic biomaterials with embedded microfluidic vascular structures to address two important challenges in the field of wound healing: 1) clinical treatment of severe cutaneous wounds due to burns or diabetes; and 2) in vitro modeling of the wound bed and development of improved epidermal grafts." (Courtesy of the Biomimicry Guild)
Learn more about this functional adaptation.
License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/ |
Rights holder/Author | (c) 2008-2009 The Biomimicry Institute |
Source | http://www.asknature.org/strategy/76818f0cc7fa20634e8465550ac7b696 |
Project BudBurst, a National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) citizen science program, is a network of people across the United States monitoring plants as the seasons change. Participants collect and share important ecological data based on the timing of leafing, flowering, and fruiting of plants (plant phenophases). Project BudBurst participants make careful observations of the timing of these phenophases and help contribute to a better understanding of changing climates.
License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ |
Rights holder/Author | Tracy Barbaro, Tracy Barbaro |
Source | http://budburst.org/home |
Flickr: What plant is that? - worldwide ( I )
Flickr: Plant Family Recognition - worldwide ( I )
Missouri Botanical Garden: Tropicos - worldwide with focus on tropics
GardenWeb Galleries - worldwide
GardenWeb "Name That Plant" Forum - worldwide ( I )
USDA Plants - North America
USDA NRCS PLANTS Identification Keys - North America
E-Flora - British Columbia, Canada
University of British Columbia Garden Forums - North America ( I )
US National Arboretum - North America
Flickr: Califlora - California, USA ( I )
www.missouriplants.com/ - Missouri, USA
Field Museum Tropical Plant Guides - Central America & South America
Flora Iberica - Iberian Peninsula, Balearic Islands
BBC Plant Finder - UK?
Flickr: Flora of the British Isles: A Photographic Guide - UK ( I )
Flickr: the De Flora van Nederland (Flora of the Netherlands) - Netherlands
Flora von Österreich (Flora of Austria) Wiki - Austria
Botanik im Bild - Austria
Flora of Zimbabwe - Zimbabwe
Flora of Mozambique - Mozambique
Identifying Australian Rainforest Plants,Trees and Fungi - Australia
License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ |
Rights holder/Author | Tracy Barbaro, Tracy Barbaro |
Source | http://eol.org/collections/108 |
Coating removes unwanted organisms: trees
The leaves of some trees protect from epiphytic freeloaders via sheddable waxy coating.
"Some trees do so [get rid of plants residing on the surface of their leaves] by regularly shedding the waxy coat to their leaves." (Attenborough 1995:168)
Learn more about this functional adaptation.
- Attenborough, D. 1995. The Private Life of Plants: A Natural History of Plant Behavior. London: BBC Books. 320 p.
License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/ |
Rights holder/Author | (c) 2008-2009 The Biomimicry Institute |
Source | http://www.asknature.org/strategy/d9266845e02ddd014974a7701278fe2d |
Leaves communicate pest damage: plants
The leaves of some plants protect from webworm caterpillars and other pests because as they are chewed, they release a chemical combination of acids and alcohols that attracts pest-eating yellow jackets.
Summary: The yellow jacket hunting for a meal needs a chemical signal. A plant injured by a chewing insect such as a webworm will give off a chemical that would draw in yellow jackets.
"The heat that the webworm produces in its chewing isn't sufficient to identify it, as that's only produced at a low level and mixes with the general heat coming up from the leaves anyway. And similarly for any bubbles of gas from the surface wax of the leaf: a leaf is always releasing microbubbles of wax on its own, so the webworm's contribution is not going to mark it out…How could the bush make a signal, using only plant-available materials, that could float and pass on a coherent message to the circling wasp?…It's in two steps. If a plant leaf is damaged, one of the acids that's released changes from its usual heavy form into a lighter kind which evaporates more easily…What the wasp will respond to is a mixture of that smell with something else. In the leaf of our lawn-edge bush, there's another chemical mixed in…But suppose it could be made in a way that it would transform into a lighter, evaporating form only when it was crushed by something like the fastidious webworm caterpillar?…When the pressure of a biting insect is applied to the second chemical, alcohols much like our ordinary drinking alcohols split loose…alchohols easily evaporate to carry an odor outward." (Bodanis 1992:58)
Learn more about this functional adaptation.
- Bodanis, D. 1992. The Secret Garden: Dawn to Dusk in the Astonishing Hidden World of the Garden. Simon & Schuster. 187 p.
License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/ |
Rights holder/Author | (c) 2008-2009 The Biomimicry Institute |
Source | http://www.asknature.org/strategy/67695c2773733470c4d128d36965aafe |
PlantingScience is a learning and research resource, bringing together students, plant scientists, and teachers from across the nation. Students engage in hands-on plant investigations, working with peers and scientist mentors to build collaborations and to improve their understanding of science.
For more information see PlantingScience.
License | http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/ |
Rights holder/Author | Katja Schulz, Katja Schulz |
Source | http://www.plantingscience.org/ |
Flickr: What plant is that? - worldwide ( I )
Flickr: Plant Family Recognition - worldwide ( I )
Missouri Botanical Garden: Tropicos - worldwide with focus on tropics
GardenWeb Galleries - worldwide
GardenWeb "Name That Plant" Forum - worldwide ( I )
USDA Plants - North America
USDA NRCS PLANTS Identification Keys - North America
E-Flora - British Columbia, Canada
University of British Columbia Garden Forums - North America ( I )
US National Arboretum - North America
Flickr: Califlora - California, USA ( I )
www.missouriplants.com/ - Missouri, USA
Field Museum Tropical Plant Guides - Central America & South America
Flora Iberica - Iberian Peninsula, Balearic Islands
BBC Plant Finder - UK?
Flickr: Flora of the British Isles: A Photographic Guide - UK ( I )
Flickr: the De Flora van Nederland (Flora of the Netherlands) - Netherlands
Flora von Österreich (Flora of Austria) Wiki - Austria
Botanik im Bild - Austria
Flora of Zimbabwe - Zimbabwe
Flora of Mozambique - Mozambique
Identifying Australian Rainforest Plants,Trees and Fungi - Australia
License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ |
Rights holder/Author | Tracy Barbaro, Tracy Barbaro |
Source | http://eol.org/collections/108 |
Xylem conduits transport water: plants
Xylem conduits in plants transport water from soil to leaves through a pulling force generated when water evaporates at the surface of leaves creating a negative pressure gradient.
"The transport system that drives sap ascent from soil to leaves is extraordinary and controversial. More than a century ago, H. H. Dixon (1896) proposed that a pulling force was generated at the evaporative surface of leaves and that this force was transmitted downward through water columns under tension to lift water much like a rope under tension can lift a weight. The cohesion–tension theory (C–T theory), as it is known, supposes both adhesion of water to conduit walls and cohesion of water molecules to each other." (Tyree 2003: 923)
Learn more about this functional adaptation.
- Tyree, Melvin T. 2003. Plant hydraulics: The ascent of water. Nature. 423(6943): 923-923.
License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/ |
Rights holder/Author | (c) 2008-2009 The Biomimicry Institute |
Source | http://www.asknature.org/strategy/d7662735f5e44d5c879876f05652d091 |