Facts At Your Fingertips: The living world – How plants work
Unlike animals, plants make their own food. They do this during the daytime, when they use sunlight to provide energy for the food-making process, called photosynthesis.
This takes place in the plant’s leaves, using a green chemical called chlorophyll.
Surviving winter
In cool parts of the world, plants stop growing in the winter.
Many trees no longer make their own food and so stop producing chlorophyll.
Their leaves turn from green to brown before falling off.
This allows them to save energy and stops them from losing water through the leaves.
Meat-eaters
In places with poor soil, such as bogs, plants can find it hard to get all the nutrients they need.
Carnivorous plants have solved this problem by eating meat. The Venus flytrap has specially adapted leaves that tempt insects in, then snap shut as soon as they land, trapping the animals
Photosynthesis
Leaves contain a special green chemical called chlorophyll. Chlorophyll is crucial to photosynthesis because it absorbs sunlight and uses the energy to make food from carbon dioxide in the air and water drawn up from the roots.
This process produces oxygen, which is released into the air.
Chloroplasts are tiny structures that contain chlorophyll. They are found inside the cells of leaves.