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Prickles on a blackberry branch. In plant morphology, thorns, spines, and prickles, and in general spinose structures (sometimes called spinose teeth or spinose apical processes), are hard, rigid extensions or modifications of leaves, roots, stems, or buds with sharp, stiff ends, and generally serve the same function: physically defending plants against herbivory.
In many cases, spines are a defense mechanism that help protect the animal against potential predators. Because spines are sharp, they can puncture skin and inflict pain and damage which may cause the predator to avoid that species from that point on. The spine of some animals are capable of injecting venom. In the case of some large species of ...
Some plants have physical defenses such as thorns, spines and prickles, but by far the most common type of protection is chemical. [ 1 ] Over millennia, through the process of natural selection , plants have evolved the means to produce a vast and complicated array of chemical compounds to deter herbivores.
Prickles and thorns are an evolved defense against herbivores — animals that eat plants — and can also aid in growth, plant competition and water retention, according to the study.
Viburnum lesquereuxii leaf with insect damage; Dakota Sandstone (Cretaceous) of Ellsworth County, Kansas. Scale bar is 10 mm. Knowledge of herbivory in geological time comes from three sources: fossilized plants, which may preserve evidence of defense (such as spines) or herbivory-related damage; the observation of plant debris in fossilised animal feces; and the structure of herbivore mouthparts.
A living plant always has embryonic tissues. The way in which new structures mature as they are produced may be affected by the point in the plant's life when they begin to develop, as well as by the environment to which the structures are exposed. A morphologist studies this process, the causes, and its result.
A stinging plant or a plant with stinging hairs is a plant with hairs on its leaves or stems that are capable of injecting substances that cause pain or irritation. Other plants, such as opuntias , have hairs or spines that cause mechanical irritation, but do not inject chemicals.
The spines cause damage to both people and domestic and native wildlife and puncture vehicle tires. [ 38 ] [ 39 ] In Argentina the trees were introduced in the early 1800s to be used as a landscape ornamental, as a forest tree, and in windbreaks.