Category Plants & Animals

Plants grow all over the world. They make the best use they can of the soil, water and sunlight. Where it is hot and wet, the trees grow very tall. Where it is cold and windy, the plants are very small.

These plants grow on a mountain.

Alpine plants have small leaves and thick stems to help them survive on a cold, windy mountainside.

 

 

 

These trees grow in hot, wet places.

Trees in hot, steamy rainforests must be tall to reach the sunlight.

 

 

 

 

 

Seaweed grows in the sea.

Seaweed has adapted to living in salt water. Some seaweed has pockets filled with air on its leaves. This helps it to float near the surface so that sunlight can reach it.

 

 

 

This plant is growing on another plant.

This is a mistletoe plant. It is growing on an apple tree. It has green leaves so it can make its own food, but it also takes food and water from the tree. It grows high up on the tree so it has plenty of light. Mistletoe does not usually kill the plant it lives on. If the apple tree dies, so does the mistletoe.

 

 

 

Plants can live almost anywhere. They live in dry deserts. It may not rain there for years. Cactus plants can live in hot deserts. They have thin, sharp leaves, thick skins and long roots. They suck up water from far under the ground.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is a very large cactus. It stores water in its thick stem.

Deserts can be cold and dry or hot and dry. Plants can live in both hot and cold deserts, but they have to be very tough. They need a way to store water for a long time. They do this by having a thick stem and skin, and thin spikes instead of broad leaves. Thin leaves lose less water than broad leaves.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some plants survive in muddy swamps.

Mangrove trees grow along tropical coasts in salt water. Mangroves have branches which send roots down into the water. Eventually, the stilt – like roots support the leafy tree above the water and hold it safely in place.

 

 

 

 

Seeds survive for a long time in the dry desert.

When rain falls on a hot desert, plants spring to life. Seeds buried in the sand grow into flowering plants. In just a few weeks they can produce seeds and die back. The seeds lie dormant in the ground for many months until the next rains.

 

 

 

Trees are the biggest plants of all. There are three kinds of trees – palm, evergreen and deciduous trees. The trunk of a tree is covered with bark. You can tell the age of a tree by counting the rings on a tree stump. Some trees can live for 4,000 years!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some trees keep their leaves all year. They are evergreen.

Most pine and fir trees are evergreen. They have cones and are called conifers. Cones are the flowers of the conifer tree. The leaves on conifers are called needles. A few needles drop off every day and new ones grow all year round.

 

 

 

 

Some trees lose all their leaves in autumn.

In autumn, the weather becomes colder and there are fewer hours of sunshine. This makes the leaves of some trees change colour and fall off. Trees that lose all their leaves after they turn brown in the autumn are called deciduous trees. Oak and beech trees are deciduous.

 

 

 

 

Roots grow down to find water.

A tree’s roots can spread wider under the ground than the branches spread above the ground.

 

               The ancients called the cotton plant the ‘Daughter of the Sun’. This was because it was only under the powerful rays of the sun that the plant would grow and flourish. The hotter the sun, the whiter and stronger would be the fibres produced. Ideal conditions for cotton growing require sunlight, heat and rain. Due to these reasons cotton is mostly grown in hot and tropical places all over the world.

               The plant grows upto 2 metres and produces seed pods or bolls which contain about 30 seeds each covered with downy hairs. As the bolls ripen, they grow and then burst open to reveal a mass of fibres.

               The cotton fibres provide the most common material used in clothing. The cotton industry is the greatest of the textile industries and gives work to millions of people all over the world. Cotton fibre is the only fibre that does not have to be softened by soaking or subjected to any other expensive treatment. It just requires to be freed from seeds before being used. However, cotton disease (byssinois) are caused by cotton dust which affects the lungs of those working in industries.

               There are about 20 species of cotton plants, only four of which are cultivated. The People’s Republic of China is the leading producer of cotton, followed by the United States. Apart from these countries cotton is also grown in large quantities in India, Peru, Russia, Brazil, Egypt, and Pakistan and in other tropical and sub-tropical regions of the world. Cotton fibres vary in length from less than 2cm to 4 cm or more. However, short and medium length fibres account for about 90% of world production. Cotton fibres are used in textiles, rugs, sheets, bandages and book binding. Cotton seed can be squeezed for oil used in margarine, salad oil and mellorine. This is also used in manufacturing of cosmetics, paints and soaps. The seeds are then processed into cattle cake and fertilizer.