Category Science

As we have already seen, not all plants reproduce through flowers. Coniferous plants have cones that carry their seeds. They are also known as gymnosperms. The word ‘gymnosperm’ comes from two Latin words, ‘Gymno’, meaning ‘naked’, and ‘sperma’, meaning ‘seeds’. Coniferous plants have exposed seeds in their cones.   Cedars, cypresses, fires, junipers, kauris, larches, pines, redwoods, spruces and yews are examples.

There are more than 600 diffrent species of coniferous plants. In most plant species, both male and female cones occur in the same plant. Male cones are smaller than female cones. They produce pollen during the springtime. These plants depend primarily on the wind for pollination. Coniferous plants are found across the globe.

Coniferous plants can grow into huge trees. Some of world’s tallest, widest and oldest trees are conifers. The leaves of coniferous plants are of three types. They are needle-shaped leaves, flat leaves and scale-like leaves.

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Have you smelt the leaves of a tulsi plant? It smells sweet. So do many other flowering plants such as roses and jasmines. While some flowers have a very attractive fragrance, some others do not have any smell at all. Some other plants have a repulsive smell too.

Flowers and plants have strong smells in order to attract pollinators. Insects are attracted by their smell. These flowers usually have a sweet fragrance; however, there are flowers that have strong stink too. Little flies come to these flowers that give out the smell of rooting meat.

Not all flowers have a fragrance. Plants that pollinate through the wind do not need colours or smell. The flowers that grow on grasses do not have any smell because they rely primarily on the wind for their pollination. Flowers in light colours such as yellow, pink and white attract moths and butterflies that can see. These flowers usually have a faint smell and not a strong one. Flowers that bees frequent do not have any smell generally. Bees see their colours and are attracted to the flowers.

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Sleep is essential for all animals. It gives necessary rest to our body and mind. In a way, plants sleep too; but not in the way we do.

Plants sleep when it is dark and there is no Sun. Since, in the absence of the Sun, they cannot make food, and photosynthesis is not possible. Therefore, during night, plants close down their stomata and only respiration remains in them, much like animals. Some plant species even fold their leaves in the dark.

Organisms have adapted to the rhythm of night and day. Scientists have been studying the day and night rhythm in plants. They say that plants sleep during the night. Flowers open in the morning and leaves close in the night. Carl Linnaeus observed that plants continued this behaviour even when they were confined inside a room away from the Sun.

Some big trees reportedly droop downwards in sleep during night. When dawn approaches, they come back to their old self, the same way we get up in the morning.

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We sweat after a hard day’s labour. Sweating is a way to control the heat of our body. What do plants do when they have excessive heat? Scientists say that plants sweat too, although not the way we do.

Plants release water from their leaves incessantly. However, this may not be visible to us. If you cover a plant with a plastic bag, you will see droplets of water formed on the leaves. These droplets are, in fact, the sweat of the plant. Sometimes, people mistake the water found on the leaves of plants in the morning as dew drops. In fact, the plant was sweating during the night. The process of a plant’s sweating is known as transpiration.

During transpiration, plants expel water through the tiny pores on their leaves called stomata. These pores can close and open in order to control the loss of water in a plant. Sometimes, the amount of water that a plant releases can be very high. It is said that, over a growing season, corn growing in one acre of land may transpire 15100 litres of water!

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You may have heard about walking trees in fairy tales. Trees do not have the ability to move about from place to place like animals. However, trees do make certain movements.

Plants move when they grow. Their movement is so subtle that we are hardly able to notice it. A growth substance called auxin is found in plant cells. This substance helps plants move in the direction of the sun. Due to the presence of the substance, when we plant a seed, its sprout will grow upwards towards the sky. Botanists call this phenomenon geotropism.

Plants move in various ways. Some vegetables such as pumpkin and bitter gourd can reach up to objects with their tendrils. Flowers move as they open and close their petals. You may have seen sensitive mimosa plants that wilt when someone touches them.

Fruits of porcupine grass can move their long tail. There are plants such as the witch hazel that shoots its seeds when they are ripe. A jumping bean moves when the caterpillar inside it jumps.

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Plants are stationary beings that stay in one place for ages. Some consider them witnesses of the events that happened in a certain place. Sometimes, divinity is even attributed to them, and people worship them. Can trees see as we do?

Some plants such as the sunflower respond to the presence of sunlight and move in that direction. The sensitive, touch-me-not plant quickly folds its leaves when someone touches it. All these facts give us the impression that plants do have the faculty of touch. However, since they lack brains, we cannot conclusively say that they can see, hear or feel pain.

Plants, however, have the ability to respond to external stimuli as is evident from the examples of the sunflower and mimosa plants. Scientists, on the other hand, think that trees lack faculties such as hearing, smell, seeing and feeling the way we have them.

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