Facts At Your Fingertips: The living world – Plants
Plants range in size from enormous trees to tiny mosses. They make their own food using the energy of the Sun in a process called photosynthesis.
Most plants are fixed in one place, with roots that can go deep into the ground. There are many different groups of plant, including ferns, mosses, flowering plants, and conifers.
Plant parts
Every part of a plant has a job to do. The roots hold the plant in place and also take in water and nutrients from the soil.
These are transferred to the rest of the plant through the stem, which also supports the leaves and flowers.
Flowers produce pollen, seeds, and fruit, which are used for reproduction.
Ferns
Ferns do not make flowers, but reproduce by releasing spores into the air from the surface of special leaves. Ferns are often found in damp, shady woods, but also grow on rock faces, in wetlands, and even on the sides of trees.
Mosses
Mosses are small plants that are ½–4 in (1–10 cm) tall. They grow in clumps in damp, shady areas.
Mosses are very simple plants with small leaves attached to wiry stems. They do not have roots or grow flowers.
Flowering plants
The biggest group of plants, flowering plants range from mighty oak trees to the tiny duckweed, which is just 1/200 in (1 mm) long.
They produce flowers, fruit, and seeds. The flowers often have brilliant colors and attract insects and birds, which carry pollen from one plant to another, fertilizing them.
Conifers
Many trees are flowering plants.
Conifers do not produce flowers, however, but instead grow cones to store their seeds.
These trees have needle-shaped leaves and mostly grow in huge forests in cold parts of the world.
GIANT REDWOODS
The largest tree species in the world is the giant redwood, which grows in California. Hyperion, the tallest redwood, stands 379 ft (115.5 m) tall.
Chandelier tree is about 65 ft (20 m) shorter, but has a hole in its trunk that is 6 ft (1.8 m) wide—big enough to drive cars through.