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Where animals have to eat organic molecules, plants are able to change energy from light into organic energy by the process of photosynthesis. The basic unit of classification is species , a group able to breed amongst themselves and bearing mutual resemblance, a broader classification is the genus .
The classification of living things into animals and plants is an ancient one. Aristotle (384–322 BC) classified animal species in his History of Animals, while his pupil Theophrastus (c. 371 –c. 287 BC) wrote a parallel work, the Historia Plantarum, on plants. [7]
In seed plants (gymnosperms and flowering plants), the sporophyte forms most of the visible plant, and the gametophyte is very small. Flowering plants reproduce sexually using flowers, which contain male and female parts: these may be within the same ( hermaphrodite ) flower, on different flowers on the same plant , or on different plants .
Fourthly, plant morphology examines the pattern of development, the process by which structures originate and mature as a plant grows. While animals produce all the body parts they will ever have from early in their life, plants constantly produce new tissues and structures throughout their life. A living plant always has embryonic tissues.
The last universal common ancestor (LUCA) is the hypothesized common ancestral cell from which the three domains of life, the Bacteria, the Archaea, and the Eukarya originated. The cell had a lipid bilayer ; it possessed the genetic code and ribosomes which translated from DNA or RNA to proteins .
The vegetation type is defined by characteristic dominant species, or a common aspect of the assemblage, such as an elevation range or environmental commonality. [3] The contemporary use of vegetation approximates that of ecologist Frederic Clements' term earth cover , an expression still used by the Bureau of Land Management .
Physiognomy: sometimes referring to the plants' appearance; or the biome's apparent characteristics, outward features, or appearance of ecological communities or species - including plants. Biome: a grouping of terrestrial ecosystems on a given continent that is similar in vegetation structure, physiognomy, features of the environment and ...
Pollen grains can be physically transferred between plants by the wind or animals, most commonly insects. Pollen grains can also transfer to an ovule of the same plant, either with the same flower or between two flowers of the same plant (self-fertilization). When a pollen grain reaches an ovule, it enters via a microscopic gap in the coat, the ...