The Green Plants

LYN C. PELONIO| BSEd-III (English) | March 30, 2017

 I. Introduction
Plants are one of the two groups into which all living things were traditionally
divided; the other is animals. The division goes back at least as far
as Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC), who distinguished between plants, which
generally do not move, and animals, which often are mobile to catch their food.
Much later, when Linnaeus (1707–1778) created the basis of the modern system
of scientific classification, these two groups became the kingdoms Vegetabilia
(later Metaphyta or Plantae) and Animalia (also called Metazoa). Since then, it
has become clear that the plant kingdom as originally defined included several
unrelated groups, and the fungi and several groups of algae were removed to
new kingdoms. However, these organisms are still often considered plants,
particularly in popular contexts.
Outside of formal scientific contexts, the term "plant" implies an association with
certain traits, such as being multicellular, possessing cellulose, and having the
ability to carry out photosynthesis.[7][8]
Plants are mainly multicellular, predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of
the kingdom Plantae.

II. Discussion

Plants are mainly multicellular, predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of

the kingdom Plantae.
The term is today generally limited to the green plants, which form an
unranked clade Viridiplantae (Latin for "green plants"). This includes
the flowering plants, conifers and
other gymnosperms, ferns, clubmosses, hornworts, liverworts, mosses and
the green algae, and excludes the red and brown algae. Historically, plants
formed one of two kingdoms covering all living things that were not animals, and
both algae and fungi were treated as plants; however all current definitions of
"plant" exclude the fungi and some algae, as well as
the prokaryotes (the archaea and bacteria).
Green plants have cell walls containing cellulose and obtain most of their energy
from sunlight via photosynthesis by primary chloroplasts, derived
from endosymbiosis with cyanobacteria. Their chloroplasts contain chlorophylls a
and b, which gives them their green color. Some plants are parasitic and have
lost the ability to produce normal amounts of chlorophyll or to photosynthesize.
Plants are characterized by sexual reproduction and alternation of generations,
although asexual reproduction is also common.

PAGE 1
There are about 300–315 thousand species of plants, of which the great majority,
some 260–290 thousand, are seed plants (see the table below).[5] Green plants
provide most of the world's molecular oxygen and are the basis of most of Earth's
ecologies, especially on land. Plants that
produce grains, fruits and vegetables form humankind's basic foodstuffs, and
have been domesticated for millennia. Plants play many roles in culture. They
are used as ornaments and, until recently and in great variety, they have served
as the source of most medicines and drugs. The scientific study of plants is
known as botany, a branch of biology.

III. Conclusion

Plants constitute most of the primary production of the Earth's ecosystems; that
is, they produce the bulk of the biomass from light, carbon dioxide, and basic
nutrients. The cornerstone of this primary productivity is photosynthesis, which
has radically altered the composition of early Earth's atmosphere, resulting in air
that is 21% oxygen. Animals rely on oxygen as well as food sources for
herbivores; plants also provide shelter and nesting locations for many species.

Land plants are key components of the water cycle and several other
biogeochemical cycles. Some plants have coevolved with nitrogen- fixing
bacteria, making plants an important part of the nitrogen cycle. Plant roots play
an essential role in soil development and prevention of soil erosion , we must
plant more and take good care of them.

IV. Implications

Most of the human diet is plant derived; in addition, a large fraction of raw
materials for shelter, clothing and other life necessities of Homo sapiens is
obtained from plant products. Furthermore, countless medicinal extracts have
been produced from plants. Tree rings are a method of dating in archaeology and
serve as a record of past climates. Basic biological research has often been done
with plants, such as use of pollen core records to study the distant past or the
pea plants used to derive Mendel's laws of genetics. The field of ethnobotany
studies plant use by indigenous cultures, which helps to conserve endangered
species as well as discover new medicinal herbs. Gardening is the top leisure
activity in many world regions.

Plants have served as a source of interest to humans for millennia beyond their
use as food. Gardening for ornamental purposes and use of cut flowers for
decoration have been noted at least as early as the Bronze Age by Egyptian,

PAGE 2
Cretan, and Celtic cultures, for example. Early scientists such as the Greeks
spent considerable effort engaging in describing and characterizing morphology
of various species. Plants have been an important element of human art, with
elements of plant architecture appearing as ornamentation for ceramics and
other decoration in Neolithic and Bronze ages in China, Crete, Southern Africa,
British Isles, Egypt, and in the Mayan civilizations. As an example, glyphs found
in Middle Minoan pottery as early as 1850 BC contain designs of olive sprig,
saffron, wheat, and silphium.[12] In the history of art, plants played an important
role as subjects in classical still-life paintings, and may have reached a
crescendo with obsessions by 18th- and 19th-century European printmakers in
creating myriads of botanical prints.

PAGE 3