Portal:Plants
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Plants are a major group of life forms and include familiar organisms such as trees, herbs, shrubs, grasses, vines, ferns, mosses, and green algae. About 350,000 species of plants, defined as seed plants, bryophytes, ferns and fern allies, are estimated to exist currently; as of 2004, some 287,655 species had been identified, of which 258,650 are flowering and 15,000 bryophytes. Green plants, sometimes called metaphytes, obtain most of their energy from sunlight via a process called photosynthesis.
Aristotle divided all living things between plants (which generally do not move), and animals (which often are mobile to catch their food). In Linnaeus' system, these became the Kingdoms Vegetabilia (later Metaphyta or Plantae) and Animalia (also called Metazoa). Since then, it has become clear that the Plantae as originally defined included several unrelated groups, and the fungi and several groups of algae were removed to new kingdoms. However, these are still often considered plants in many contexts, both technical and popular. Indeed, an attempt to perfectly match "plant" with a single taxon is problematic, because for most people the term plant is only vaguely related to the phylogenic concepts on which modern taxonomy and systematics are based.
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Pinguicula moranensis is a perennial rosette-forming insectivorous herb native to Mexico and Guatemala. A species of butterwort, it forms summer rosettes of flat, succulent leaves up to 10 centimeters (4 in) long, which are covered in mucilagenous (sticky) glands that attract, trap, and digest arthropod prey. Nutrients derived from the prey are used to supplement the nutrient-poor substrate that the plant grows in. In the winter the plant forms a non-carnivorous rosette of small, fleshy leaves that conserves energy while food and moisture supplies are low. Single pink, purple, or violet flowers appear twice a year on upright stalks up to 25 centimeters long; the species was first collected by Humboldt and Bonpland on the outskirts of Mina de Morán in the Sierra de Pachuca of the modern-day Mexican state of Hidalgo on their Latin American expedition of 1799–1804. Based on these collections, Humboldt, Bonpland and Carl Sigismund Kunth described this species in Nova Genera et Species Plantarum in 1817; the extremely variable species has been redefined at least twice since, while several new species have been segregated from it based on various geographical or morphological distinctions, although the legitimacy of some of these is still debated. P. moranensis remains the most common and most widely distributed member of the Section Orcheosanthus. It has long been cultivated for its carnivorous nature and attractive flowers, and is one of the most common butterworts in cultivation.
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... that the tallest specimens of Eucalyptus deanei (pictured) are over 70 m (230 ft) high?
... that the Lamiaceae species Conradina grandiflora has the largest flowers of the genus Conradina?
... that patches of Corema conradii in New Jersey began to sprout seedlings again after an F-16 set them on fire?
... that Salix glauca is a rich source of calcium and phosphorus for its browsers?
... that the name Ginkgo dissecta was first coined in 1974 but not formalized until 2002?
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Biosphere • Botany • Evolutionary history of plants • Flower • Forest • Fruit • Garden • Gardening • Greenhouse • Houseplant • List of poisonous plants • Paleobotany • Photosynthesis • Plant cell • Tree • Vegetable • Vegetation •
History of botany
Paleobotany
Geobotany
Phytochemistry
Plant pathology
Bryology
Floristics
Plant groups
Non-vascular plants
Gymnosperm
(glossary)
Cell wall
Phragmoplast
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Ground tissue
Mesophyll
Storage organs
Vegetative
Rhizoid
Cataphyll
Sessility
(Flower)
Flower development
Umbel
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Bract
Pedicellate
Aestivation
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Hypanthium (Floral cup)
Perianth
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Sporophyll
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Plant embryo
Fruit anatomy
Seed dispersal
Endosperm
Surface structures
Epicuticular wax
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Nectary
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Plant hormone
Turgor pressure
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Aleurone
Phytomelanin
Plant growth and habit
Secondary growth
Subshrubs
Alternation of generations
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Megaspore
Pollen tube
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Evolutionary development
Evolutionary history
History of plant systematics
Biological classification
Correct name
International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants (ICN)
International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants (ICNCP)
Taxonomic rank
International Association for Plant Taxonomy (IAPT)
Plant taxonomy systems
Cultivated plant taxonomy
Citrus taxonomy
cultigen
Botanical terms
by author abbreviation
Botanical expedition
Describe all families, genera and species of the kingdom Plantae.
For species, describe botanical properties, distribution, multiplication, usage (medicine, food, etc.), botanical history, cultivation information.
Develop and implement a robust method of naming plant article for the ease of navigation and searching for Wikipedia users.
Maintain Category:Plants and its subcategories.
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Missing encyclopedic articles about Botany.
Missing encyclopedic articles in Hotlist of Plants
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Life [videos]
Life is a characteristic that distinguishes physical entities that have biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes, from those that do not, either because such functions have ceased, or because they never had such functions and are classified as …
Plants in the Rwenzori Mountains, Uganda
Adenovirus as seen under an electron microscope
Plant growth in the Hoh Rainforest
Herds of zebra and impala gathering on the Maasai Mara plain
Organism [videos]
In biology, an organism is any individual entity that exhibits the properties of life. It is a synonym for "life form". — Organisms are classified by taxonomy into specified groups such as the multicellular animals, plants, and fungi; or unicellular microorganisms …
Escherichia coli is a microscopic single-celled organism, and a prokaryote as well.
Amoebae are single-celled eukaryotes
Polypore fungi and angiosperm trees are large many-celled eukaryotes.
Precambrian stromatolites in the Siyeh Formation, Glacier National Park. In 2002, a paper in the scientific journal Nature suggested that these 3.5 Gya (billion years old) geological formations contain fossilized cyanobacteria microbes. This suggests they are evidence of one of the earliest known life forms on Earth.
Tree [videos]
In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, supporting branches and leaves in most species. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, including only woody plants with secondary growth, plants that are usable as lumber or plants above a specified height …
Common ash (Fraxinus excelsior), a deciduous broad-leaved (angiosperm) tree
European larch (Larix decidua), a coniferous tree which is also deciduous
Tall herbaceous monocotyledonous plants such as banana lack secondary growth, but are trees under the broadest definition.
The Daintree Rainforest
Shrub [videos]
A shrub or bush is a small- to medium-sized woody plant. Unlike herbaceous plants, shrubs have persistent woody stems above the ground. They are distinguished from trees by their multiple stems and shorter height, and are usually under 6 m tall. Plants of many species may grow either into …
A broom shrub in flower
A rhododendron shrubbery in Sheringham Park
Euonymus bushes in a garden
Shrub vegetation (with some cactus) in Webb County, Texas.
Poaceae [videos]
Poaceae or Gramineae is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of monocotyledonous flowering plants known as grasses, commonly referred to collectively as grass. Poaceae includes the cereal grasses, bamboos and the grasses of natural grassland and cultivated lawns and pasture. Grasses have stems …
Flowering head of meadow foxtail (Alopecurus pratensis), with stamens exerted at anthesis
A kangaroo eating grass
Wind-blown grass in the Valles Caldera in New Mexico
Setaria verticillata from Panicoideae
Vine [videos]
A vine is any plant with a growth habit of trailing or scandent stems, lianas or runners. The word vine can also refer to such stems or runners themselves, for instance, when used in wicker work.In parts of the world …
betel. A climbing plant
A tendril
Convolvulus vine twining around a steel fixed ladder
Grapevine covering a chimney
Moss [videos]
Mosses are small flowerless plants that typically grow in dense green clumps or mats, often in damp or shady locations. The individual plants are usually composed of simple leaves that are generally only one cell thick, attached to a stem that may be branched or unbranched and has only a limited …
Clumps of moss on the ground and base of trees in the Allegheny National Forest, Pennsylvania, United States.
Chloroplasts and accumulated starch granules in Bryum capillare
A patch of moss showing both gametophytes (the low, leaf-like forms) and sporophytes (the tall, stalk-like forms)
"Muscinae" from Ernst Haeckel's Kunstformen der Natur, 1904
Algae [videos]
Algae is an informal term for a large, diverse group of photosynthetic eukaryotic organisms that are not necessarily closely related, and is thus polyphyletic. Including organisms ranging from unicellular microalgae genera, such as Chlorella and the diatoms, to multicellular …
A variety of algae growing on the sea bed in shallow waters
False-color scanning electron micrograph of the unicellular coccolithophore Gephyrocapsa oceanica
The kelp forest exhibit at the Monterey Bay Aquarium: A three-dimensional, multicellular thallus
Rock lichens in Ireland
Fern ally [videos]
Fern allies are a diverse group of seedless vascular plants that are not true ferns. Like ferns, a fern ally disperses by shedding spores to initiate an alternation of generations. — Classification — Originally, three or four groups of plants were considered to be fern allies. In various …
A clubmoss, from the Lycopodiopsida
Isoëtes lacustris, a quillwort, from the Isoetopsida
Equisetum fluviatile, from the Equisetopsida (horsetails)
Psilotum nudum, from the Psilotopsida (whisk ferns)
Flower [videos]
A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants. The biological function of a flower is to effect reproduction, usually by providing a mechanism for the union of sperm with eggs …
A poster with flowers or clusters of flowers produced by twelve species of flowering plants from different families.
Flowers in the Netherlands.
Main parts of a mature flower (Ranunculus glaberrimus).
Reproductive parts of Easter Lily (Lilium longiflorum). 1. Stigma, 2. Style, 3. Stamens, 4. Filament, 5. Petal
Aristotle [videos]
Aristotle was a philosopher during the Classical period in Ancient Greece, the founder of the Lyceum and the Peripatetic school of philosophy and Aristotelian tradition. Along with his teacher Plato, he is considered the …
Roman copy in marble of a Greek bronze bust of Aristotle by Lysippos, c. 330 BC, with modern alabaster mantle
School of Aristotle in Mieza, Macedonia, Greece
Portrait bust of Aristotle; an Imperial Roman (1st or 2nd century AD) copy of a lost bronze sculpture made by Lysippos
Aristotle argued that a capability like playing the flute could be acquired – the potential made actual – by learning.
Carl Linnaeus [videos]
Carl Linnaeus, also known after his ennoblement as Carl von Linné, was a Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming organisms. He is known as the …
Birthplace at Råshult
Statue as a university student in Lund
Wearing the traditional dress of the Sami people of Lapland, holding the twinflower, later known as Linnaea borealis, that became his personal emblem. Martin Hoffman, 1737.
Wedding portrait
Hydrothermal vent mussels and shrimps
The blue whale is the largest animal that has ever lived.
Fungus [videos]
A fungus is any member of the group of eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and molds, as well as the more familiar mushrooms. These organisms are classified as a kingdom, fungi, which is separate from the other eukaryotic life kingdoms of …
Omphalotus nidiformis, a bioluminescent mushroom
The 8-spore asci of Morchella elata, viewed with phase contrast microscopy
The bird's nest fungus Cyathus stercoreus
Image: Fungi collage
Pinguicula moranensis [videos]
Pinguicula moranensis is a perennial rosette-forming insectivorous herb native to Mexico and Guatemala. A species of butterwort, it forms summer rosettes of flat, succulent leaves up to 10 centimeters long, which are covered in mucilaginous glands that attract, trap, and digest …
In habitat in Oaxaca
Flower form from Querétaro, Mexico
A print of P. caudata from Morren's work (1872)
Carnivorous plant [videos]
Carnivorous plants are plants that derive some or most of their nutrients from trapping and consuming animals or protozoans, typically insects and other arthropods. Carnivorous plants have adapted to grow in places where the soil is thin or poor in nutrients, especially nitrogen …
An upper pitcher of Nepenthes lowii, a tropical pitcher plant that supplements its carnivorous diet with tree shrew droppings
The pitchers of Heliamphora chimantensis are an example of pitfall traps.
Darlingtonia californica: note the small entrance to the trap underneath the swollen "balloon" and the colourless patches that confuse prey trapped inside.
Brocchinia reducta: a carnivorous bromeliad
Mexico [videos]
Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific …
Depiction of the founding myth of Mexico-Tenochtitlan from the Codex Mendoza
Cave art painting occurred about 7,500 years old in Baja California Peninsula. Culturally and geographically very distinct from Mesoamerica, indigenous peoples inhabited the region since the end of the Pleistocene.
View of the Pyramid of the Moon and entrance to the Quetzalpapálotl Palace. During its peak in the Classic era, Teotihuacán dominated the Valley of Mexico and exerted political and cultural influence in other areas, such as in the Petén Basin.
Mexico-Tenochtitlan Templo Mayor ruins in downtown Mexico City.
Guatemala [videos]
Guatemala, officially the Republic of Guatemala, is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, Belize and the Caribbean to the northeast, Honduras to the east, El Salvador to the …
Maya city of Tikal
Criollos rejoice upon learning about the declaration of independence from Spain on 15 September 1821.
Proclamation Coin 1847 of the independent Republic of Guatemala
Captain General Rafael Carrera after being appointed President for Life in 1854.
Arthropod [videos]
An arthropod is an invertebrate animal having an exoskeleton, a segmented body, and paired jointed appendages. Arthropods form the phylum Euarthropoda, which includes insects, arachnids, myriapods, and crustaceans. The …
Extinct and modern arthropods
Cicada climbing out of its exoskeleton while attached to tree
Head of a wasp with three ocelli (center), and compound eyes at the left and right
The nauplius larva of a penaeid shrimp
Pinguicula [videos]
Pinguicula, commonly known as the butterworts, is a genus of carnivorous plants that use sticky, glandular leaves to lure, trap, and digest insects in order to supplement the poor mineral nutrition they obtain from the environment. Of the roughly 80 currently known species, 12 are native to Europe …
Winter rosette of Pinguicula cyclosecta (non-carnivorous phase)
Summer rosette of Pinguicula cyclosecta (carnivorous phase)
A fly trapped on a butterwort leaf. Glandular hairs are visible
Bryophyte [videos]
Bryophytes are an informal group consisting of three divisions of non-vascular land plants: the liverworts, hornworts and mosses. They are characteristically limited in size and prefer moist habitats although they can survive in drier environments. The bryophytes consist of about …
Marchantia, an example of a liverwort.
Liverworts are included in the bryophyte group
Moss peat is made from Sphagnum
Photosynthesis [videos]
Photosynthesis is a process used by plants and other organisms to convert light energy into chemical energy that can later be released to fuel the organisms' activities. This chemical energy is stored in carbohydrate molecules, such as sugars, which are synthesized from carbon dioxide and water – …
Composite image showing the global distribution of photosynthesis, including both oceanic phytoplankton and terrestrial vegetation. Dark red and blue-green indicate regions of high photosynthetic activity in the ocean and on land, respectively.
Plant cells with visible chloroplasts (from a moss, Plagiomnium affine)
Rosette (botany) [videos]
In botany, a rosette is a circular arrangement of leaves or of structures resembling leaves. — In flowering plants, rosettes usually sit near the soil, their structure is an example of a modified stem in which the internode gaps between the leaves do not expand, so that all the leaves remain …
Rosette growth form of the liverwort Ricciocarpos natans.
Rosette of leaves of Agave americana
Mucilage [videos]
Mucilage is a thick, gluey substance produced by nearly all plants and some microorganisms. These microorganisms include protists which use it for their locomotion. The direction of their movement is always opposite to that of the secretion of mucilage. It is a polar glycoprotein and an …
A sundew with a leaf bent around a fly trapped by mucilage.
Glass container for mucilage, from the first half of the 20th century.
Herb [videos]
In general use, herbs are plants with savory or aromatic properties that are used for flavoring and garnishing food, medicinal purposes, or for fragrances; excluding vegetables and other plants consumed for macronutrients. Culinary use typically distinguishes herbs from spices. Herbs generally …
A variety of herbs are visible in this garden. Pictured is mint, along with some other herbs
Spermatophyte [videos]
The spermatophytes, also known as phanerogams or phaenogams, comprise those plants that produce seeds, hence the alternative name seed plants. They are a subset of the embryophytes or land plants. The term phanerogams or phanerogamae is derived from the …
Scots pine, Pinus sylvestris, a member of the Pinophyta
Electromagnetic radiation [videos]
In physics, electromagnetic radiation refers to the waves of the electromagnetic field, propagating through space, carrying electromagnetic radiant energy. It includes radio waves, microwaves, infrared, light, ultraviolet …
Phylogenetics [videos]
In biology, phylogenetics is the study of the evolutionary history and relationships among individuals or groups of organisms. These relationships are discovered …
Phylogenetic tree suggested by Haeckel (1866)
Herbaceous plant [videos]
Herbaceous plants are plants that have no persistent woody stem above ground. The term is mainly applied to perennials, but in botany it may also refer to annuals or biennials, and include both forbs and graminoids.Annual herbaceous plants die completely …
Trientalis latifolia (Broadleaf Starflower) is a perennial herbaceous plant of the ground layer of forests in western North America.
Whitney Houston [videos]
Whitney Elizabeth Houston was an American singer and actress. She was cited as the most awarded female artist of all time by Guinness World Records and remains one of the best-selling music artists of all time with 200 million records sold worldwide. She …
Houston performing at Welcome Home Heroes with Whitney Houston in 1991
New Hope Baptist Church
Houston performing "Saving All My Love for You" on the Welcome Home Heroes concert in 1991
Houston performing "My Love Is Your Love" with her daughter Bobbi Kristina Brown on Good Morning America, September 2, 2009
Marseille [videos]
Marseille is the second-largest city of France. The main city of the historical province of Provence, it nowadays is the prefecture of the department of …
View of the "Petit Nice" on Marseille's corniche (7th arrondissement) with the Frioul archipelago and the Château d'If in the background
The entrance to the Old Port, flanked by Fort Saint-Jean and Fort Saint-Nicolas
From left to right: La Joliette neighbourhood (old docks), ferry ship docks, new port, Euroméditerranée business district (CMA CGM Tower) and surrounding areas
Pointe Rouge Beach