What is special about a flower?
Whether expressing love, symbolizing peace, or representing purity, flowers have a unique way of communicating without words. In the natural world, flowers have evolved all kinds of tricks to attract pollinators—bright colors, captivating scents, and sweet nectar rewards are just a few. Over time, flowers developed adaptations to attract specific pollinators, like visible nectar guides, enticing scents, and ultraviolet patterns only visible to insects. Specialist pollinators, in turn, evolved adaptations like long tongues and bodies perfectly suited to pollinate certain blossoms.For most plants, flowers attract pollinators to make seeds, helping plants to reproduce and form the next generation. Flowers also play important roles in ecosystems. Floral nectar, pollen and even petals are an important food source for a huge range of animals, from bees and beetles to birds and bats.Flowers are the reproductive parts of most plants. In order for a seed to develop, pollen has to move from male to female parts of flowers and grow down to the ovary. Pollinators visit flowers to eat the sweet nectar and accidentally move pollen from stamen to stigma.
What is special about a plant?
Plants keep the soil together preventing erosion. Plants provide oxygen for us and all the other animals. Through photosynthesis they absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen which gives us the air that allows all animals on the planet to breathe. Plants are an essential part of the water cycle. They provide us with the air we breathe, the food we eat, and the materials we use for shelter and clothing. Here are some key reasons why plants are essential: Oxygen: Through the process of photosynthesis, plants release oxygen into the atmosphere, supporting the respiration of all living organisms, including humans.Through photosynthesis, plants provide the planet with food, oxygen, and energy. In addition, they are used to produce fiber, medicines, building materials, and natural products such as oils and latex. Plants are essential to human diets and enliven and sustain the environment.In the process, plants take in carbon dioxide and release oxygen. No light, no photosynthesis. However, like us, plants respire nonstop, day and night, continually taking in oxygen and releasing carbon dioxide as they “burn” stored carbohydrates to fuel growth and the many metabolic functions needed to sustain life.Plants don’t have lungs to inhale and exhale the air that blows around them, but they do, in their own way, ‘breathe’ in and out oxygen and carbon dioxide. Here you can discover how plants carry out gas exchange and how we can make sure they breathe easy.Most plants have several things in common. They need sunshine, water, and air to grow. They are not able to move around. Their cells have stiff walls made of a tough material called cellulose.
What was the first plant on Earth?
It has generally been assumed that the earliest land plants were liverwort-like and therefore much research effort has been poured into studying this group and developing it as a model for the ancestral land plant. Moss are the oldest plants in the world with the plants’ ancestors living about 470 million years ago. Due to the soft and fragile nature of moss, its presence in the fossil record is limited.