Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Tropical rainforests have been called the "jewels of the Earth" and the "world's largest pharmacy", because over one quarter of natural medicines have been discovered there. [2] Rainforests as well as endemic rainforest species are rapidly disappearing due to deforestation, the resulting habitat loss and pollution of the atmosphere. [3]
The forest floor supports a variety of plants, ferns, grasses, and tree seedlings, as well as animals such as ants, amphibians, spiders, and millipedes. Understory is made up of bushes, shrubs, and young trees that are adapted to living in the shade of the canopy. Canopy is formed by the mass of intertwined branches, twigs, and leaves of mature ...
A single hectare of rainforest may contain 42,000 different species of insect, up to 807 trees of 313 species and 1,500 species of higher plants. [5] Tropical rainforests have been called the "world's largest pharmacy", because over one quarter of natural medicines have been discovered within them.
Bamboos also differ from ordinary trees both in appearance and characteristics like having trunks that are sturdy but do not grow thick. Bamboos grow quickly and abundant, often preventing sunlight from touching the ground, making it difficult for other plants to grow in bamboo forests which is why you will only see bamboo trees in these ...
An epiphyte is a plant or plant-like organism that grows on the surface of another plant and derives its moisture and nutrients from the air, rain, water (in marine environments) or from debris accumulating around it. The plants on which epiphytes grow are called phorophytes.
The Amazon rainforest, [a] also called Amazon jungle or Amazonia, is a moist broadleaf tropical rainforest in the Amazon biome that covers most of the Amazon basin of South America. This basin encompasses 7,000,000 km 2 (2,700,000 sq mi), [ 2 ] of which 6,000,000 km 2 (2,300,000 sq mi) are covered by the rainforest . [ 3 ]
A liana is a long-stemmed woody vine that is rooted in the soil at ground level and uses trees, as well as other means of vertical support, to climb up to the canopy in search of direct sunlight. [1] The word liana does not refer to a taxonomic grouping, but rather a habit of plant growth – much like tree or shrub .
More than half of all plant and land animal species in the world live in tropical forests. [21] As a result of deforestation, only 6.2 million square kilometres (2.4 million square miles) remain of the original 16 million square kilometres (6 million square miles) of tropical rainforest that formerly covered the Earth. [ 19 ]