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Plants play a vital role in society, they provide us with oxygen, food, medicine, and more. This is why we need to take care of our environment and take the right precautions to make sure our plants survive for years to come. I believe that if the population continues to pollute the environment with harmful substances, our plants will keep diminishing. If we lose plants there will be nothing. Although there are new technologies that can help produce plants faster and better, we can never just rely on them.

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Plants are an essential resource. We rely on them for food, water, medicine, the air we breathe, habitat and our climate.

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The pharmacological industry utilizes medicinal plants due to the presence of an active chemical substance. Medicinal plants are also valuable for the food and cosmetic industry as additives, due to their preservative effects from the presence of antioxidants and antimicrobial constituents. Medicinal plants can be known to reduce the risk of cancer. It is very important to understand that medicinal plants can be very beneficial for your health. There is always an alternative to modern medicine just in case there are too many risks involved.

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Medicinal plants are traditionally used in folk medicine as natural healing remedies with therapeutic effects such as prevention of cardiovascular diseases, inflammation disorders, or reducing the risk of cancer. In addition, pharmacological industry utilizes medicinal plants due to the presence of active chemical substances as agents for drug synthesis. They are valuable also for food and cosmetic industry as additives, due to their preservative effects because of the presence of antioxidants and antimicrobial constituents. To commonly used medicinal plants with antioxidant activity known worldwide belong plants from several families, especially Lamiaceae (rosemary, sage, oregano, marjoram, basil, thyme, mints, balm), Apiaceae (cumin, fennel, caraway), and Zingiberaceae (turmeric, ginger). The antioxidant properties of medicinal plants depend on the plant, its variety, environmental conditions, climatic and seasonal variations, geographical regions of growth, degree of ripeness, growing practices, and many other factors such as postharvest treatment and processing. In addition, composition and concentration of present antioxidants, such as phenolic compounds, are related to antioxidant effect. For appropriate determination of antioxidant capacity, the extraction technique, its conditions, solvent used, and particular assay methodology are important.

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Antioxidant Activity and Protecting Health Effects of Common Medicinal Plants

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Medicinal plants are traditionally used in folk medicine as natural healing remedies with therapeutic effects such as prevention of cardiovascular diseases, inflammation disorders, or reducing the risk of cancer. In addition, pharmacological industry utilizes medicinal plants due to the presence of active chemical substances as agents for drug synthesis.

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Domesticating plants marked a major turning point for humans. The beginning of an agricultural way of life and more permanent civilizations. Humans no longer had to wander to hunt animals and gather plants for their food supplies. Plant domestication led to more food, more free time for humans, increased population, and creations of new tools.

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The Agricultural Revolution: Crash Course World History #1

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Plant domestication is the process where wild plants have been evolved into crop plants through artificial selection. This is important because domestication has enhanced the reproductive output of crop plants, resulting in more food for everyone to consume. If domestication never happened people would still be hunting and gathering to get their food.

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A biome is a large geographical area consisting of plant and animal groups that are adapted to that particular environment. The climate, geographic location, and environmental factors largely determines what type of biomes exist. It is important to understand biomes and plant diversity because some plants can only survive in a specific environment. For example, if I were to move to a tundra biome I wouldn't be able to take my golden barrel cactus with me, because it is native to a desert biome.

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Plants live just about everywhere on Earth. To live in so many different habitats, they have evolved adaptations that allow them to survive and reproduce under a diversity of conditions. This is important to understand because we humans need plants to survive. If plants couldn't adapt to their surroundings, they wouldn't be able to survive in some conditions. The more plants we have here on earth the better!

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Page ID

6667

1. Look closely at the petals of this flower. Do they look different?

2. Plant Adaptations

1. Adaptations to Water

2. Adaptations to Extreme Dryness

3. Adaptations to Air

3. Summary

4. Review

Look closely at the petals of this flower. Do they look different?

This flower is from an aloe plant. Aloes are succulent plants, which have adaptations that allow them to store water in their enlarged fleshy leaves, stems, or roots. This allows them to survive in arid environments.

Plant Adaptations

Plants live just about everywhere on Earth. To live in so many different habitats, they have evolved adaptations that allow them to survive and reproduce under a diversity of conditions.

All plants are adapted to live on land. Or are they? All living plants today have terrestrial ancestors, but some plants now live in the water. They have had to evolve new adaptations for their watery habitat.

Adaptations to Water

Aquatic plants are plants that live in water. Living in water has certain advantages for plants. One advantage is, well, the water. There's plenty of it and it's all around. Therefore, most aquatic plants do not need adaptations for absorbing, transporting, and conserving water. They can save energy and matter by not growing extensive root systems, vascular tissues, or thick cuticles on leaves. Support is also less of a problem because of the buoyancy of water. As a result, adaptations such as strong woody stems and deep anchoring roots are not necessary for most aquatic plants.

Living in water does present challenges to plants, however. For one thing, pollination by wind or animals isn't feasible under water, so aquatic plants may have adaptations that help them keep their flowers above water. For instance, water lilies have bowl-shaped flowers and broad, flat leaves that float. This allows the lilies to collect the maximum amount of sunlight, which does not penetrate very deeply below the water's surface. Plants that live in moving water, such as streams and rivers, may have different adaptations. For example, cattails have narrow, strap-like leaves that reduce their resistance to the moving water (see Figure below).

Water lilies and cattails have different adaptations for life in the water. Compare the leaves of the two kinds of plants. How do the leaves help the plants adapt to their watery habitats?

Adaptations to Extreme Dryness

Plants that live in extremely dry environments have the opposite problem: how to get and keep water. Plants that are adapted to very dry environments are called xerophytes. Their adaptations may help them increase water intake, decrease water loss, or store water when it is available.

The saguaro cactus pictured in Figure below has adapted in all three ways. When it was still a very small plant, just a few inches high, its shallow roots already reached out as much as 2 meters (7 feet) from the base of the stem. By now, its root system is much more widespread. It allows the cactus to gather as much moisture as possible from rare rainfalls. The saguaro doesn't have any leaves to lose water by transpiration. It also has a large, barrel-shaped stem that can store a lot of water. Thorns protect the stem from thirsty animals that might try to get at the water inside.

The saguaro cactus has many adaptations for extreme dryness. How does it store water?

Adaptations to Air

Plants called epiphytes grow on other plants. They obtain moisture from the air and make food by photosynthesis. Most epiphytes are ferns or orchids that live in tropical or temperate rainforests (see Figure below). Host trees provide support, allowing epiphyte plants to obtain air and sunlight high above the forest floor. Being elevated above the ground lets epiphytes get out of the shadows on the forest floor so they can get enough sunlight for photosynthesis. Being elevated may also reduce the risk of being eaten by herbivores and increase the chance of pollination by wind.

These Elkhorn and Staghorn ferns are growing on a rainforest tree as epiphytes.

Epiphytes don't grow in soil, so they may not have roots. However, they still need water for photosynthesis. Rainforests are humid, so the plants may be able to absorb the water they need from the air. However, many epiphytes have evolved modified leaves or other structures for collecting rainwater, fog, or dew. The leaves of the bromeliad shown in Figure below are rolled into funnel shapes to collect rainwater. The base of the leaves forms a tank that can hold more than 8 liters (2 gallons) of water. Some insects and amphibians may spend their whole life cycle in the pool of water in the tank, adding minerals to the water with their wastes. The tissues at the base of the leaf are absorbent, so they can take in both water and minerals from the tank.

The leaves of this bromeliad are specialized to collect, store, and absorb rainwater.

Summary

Plants live just about everywhere on Earth, so they have evolved adaptations that allow them to survive and reproduce under a diversity of conditions.

Various plants have evolved adaptations to live in the water, in very dry environments, or in the air as epiphytes.

Review

1. List special challenges that aquatic plants face.

2. What are xerophytes? Give an example.

3. Identify three general ways that plants can adapt to extreme dryness.

4. Describe how epiphytes can absorb moisture without growing roots in soil.

5. Why are epiphytes found mainly in rainforest ecosystems?

6. Apply the concept of symbiosis to epiphytes and their host plants. Do you think they have a symbiotic relationship? If so, which type of symbiotic relationship do you think they have? Explain your answer.

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Page ID 6667 Look closely at the petals of this flower. Do they look different? Plant Adaptations Adaptations to Water Adaptations to Extreme Dryness Adaptations to Air Summary Review This flower is from an aloe plant. Aloes are succulent plants, which have adaptations that allow them to store water in their enlarged fleshy leaves, stems, or roots.

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Plants require water, sunlight, and CO2 in order to grow. These things help provide plants with the nutrients they need to grow. This is important to comprehend because plants are vital to all life on earth. They produce the oxygen we breathe, so we have to know how to properly care for them and be aware of what they need to survive.

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Class 5 Science | Plant Germination - Learn about Seed Germination  | Pearson

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Most plants have a basic structure made up of 6 parts. This includes; roots, stems, leaves, fruit, flowers, and seeds. It is important to understand each part and how it contributes to the plants' function.

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Flowers are the distinguishing characteristic of flowering plants, or angiosperms, that make up a majority of the plant kingdom. They are the reproductive organs of a plant that gradually develop into fruits. A flower may be of two types - perfect flowers and imperfect flowers. Perfect flowers are hermaphrodites, that is, they have both male and female reproductive parts.

On the other hand, imperfect flowers are unisexual, that is, they have either male or female reproductive part. Plants that bear both male and female flowers are called monoecious plants, while those that bear only male or female flowers are called dioecious plants.

Flowers have specifically evolved to have a bright and colorful appearance (for the most part) so that they can lure pollinators such as birds, butterflies, bees and wasps.

Although flowers differ in shapes and sizes, the anatomy of a flower is usually the same: sepals, petals, stamen and carpel. These parts are arranged in a circular fashion to form a whorl, a circular arrangement.

A flower that has all four parts is called a complete flower, and one that lacks one or more of the four parts is called an incomplete flower.

Flower buds are often covered by green leaf-like structures called sepals that protect them in the bud stage. All sepals of a flower form the outer whorl called the calyx. Though usually green, sepals may differ in color depending on the plant.

Flowers of plants, such as anemones, do not have sepals while in some flowers, they are modified into bracts, small leaf-like structures present around a flower. In some plants, the bracts may be larger and more brightly colored than petals. Flowers that do not have petals usually tend to have modified sepals that are bigger and brightly colored to attract pollinators.

Usually, petals are the most prominent part of a flower structure, owing to their vivid color (in most flower examples) and sometimes scent. Their main function is to attract pollinators and also protect the inner reproductive structures of a flower.

In some flowers, petals are absent or reduced. The whorl of petals is called a corolla. The calyx and corolla collectively form the perianth.

A stamen is the male part of a flower, and together all stamens form the inner third whorl of a flower structure called the androecium. Each stamen comprises a long tubular filament with a sac called the anther at the top. Pollen grains contain male reproductive cells or male gametes and are produced in anthers; each anther contains many pollen grains.

A single pollen grain contains a vegetative cell and a generative cell. The vegetative cell forms the pollen tube and the generative cell fertilizes the female reproductive cell. When a pollinator touches the anther, pollen from the anther sticks to the pollinator and gets transported to the other flowers that the pollinator visits.

Carpels are the female part of a flower that form the innermost whorl of a flower structure called the gynoecium. Each carpel has a swollen sac-like base called the ovary, which contains female reproductive cells called ovules.

The ovary extends upward in a long slender tube called the style and terminates into a flat sticky surface called the stigma. The sticky surface of the stigma helps to capture pollen grains.

*** FancyTapis/iStock/GettyImages

When a pollen grain falls on the stigma, the pollen germinates to produce a long tube called pollen tube through the style. The pollen tube eventually reaches the ovules and fertilizes them. Each fertilized ovule develops into a seed and the ovary develops into a fleshy outer covering that gradually becomes the fruit.

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Flowers are the reproductive organs of a plant and contain male and female parts. Sepals, petals, stamens and carpels form the four main parts of a flower. The stamens form the androecium, the male reproductive part, and the carpels form the gynoecium, the female reproductive part.