AMAZING

1. Cycads were widespread by about 250 million years   

   ago.They were probably eaten by some dinosaurs.

2. The world’s smallest flower is the Wolffia angusta duckweed

of Australia.This is a floating water plant 0.6 mm long and  

0.33 mm wide.It can only be seen clearly when viewed under

a magnifying  glass.

3. One wild fig tree near Ohrigstad.Mpumalanga,South Africa  

is believed to have roots that reach down to a depth of 120m.

RAINFOREST  ORCHIDS

Ø Orchids living high on rainforest trees have special roots that absorb water from the air. Their thick, waxy leaves help to stop water escaping from the plant.

SEAWEED ICE CREAM

¶ This farmer is harvesting seaweed. Many seaweeds are edible and in some places are considered delicacies. In addition, seaweed is used as an ingredient in many food product, including ice cream. Most of the water in ice cream freeze into very small ice crystals. Adding chemicals from seaweed slows down the growth of ice crystals in the ice cream and helps to keep the ice cream smooth. Seaweed is also used in cosmetics and as a fertilizer for farm craps.

TEA LEAVES

v Tea is the dried leaves of the evergreen tea plant, which grows in the tropics, mostly at an altitude of between 1000 and 2000m. Tea plants can grow 9m tall, but they are pruned to 3m on tea plantations. Workers called tea pluckers pick leaves from mature tea plants by hand. The leaves are then taken to a nearby factory to be dried, crushed and treated.

PLANT  GROUPS

Ë There are about 375,000 species of plant. The biggest plant family is the flowering plants or angiosperms, with over 250,000 species. Other important plant groups are mosses and liverworts (seen here),ferns and horsetails and conifers and cycads. Fungi used to be classed as plants,but as they cannot make their own food, they are now put in a class of their own, which includes about 100,000 species.

PLANT  POWER

Ï What all plants share is the ability to capture the energy in sunlight. Plants, such as this sunflower,use this energy to fuel their own life processes, such as growth and reproduction. Animals, in turn, derive energy from plants by eating them.In this way,plants power all life on Earth.

INFO SCIENCE 2

  The oldest living trees are bristlecone pines,some of which are more than 4000 years old.They have a long lifespan ,because they  grow  very slowly and live in cool,dry areas,such as Nevada,Utah and California in USA.

ª    The small, hardy rowan,also known as mountain ash ,grows up to 15m tall.It is most common throughout western and northern parts of the UK.

ª    Chocolate is made by grinding the kernels of cocoa beans to a paste called chocolate liquor.The liquor is hardened in moulds to make chocolate.

ª    The cycads and gingkos of today are the direct descendants of the first seed plants to appear on land.

ª    One orchid flower may produce more than 2 million tiny seeds.An orchid seed needs the help of a fungus to sprout  and obtain food.