Plants. How many of them on Earth! They surround us everywhere: both on land and in the depths of the sea. Plants allow us to breathe, because under the influence of sunlight, green spaces turn carbon dioxide into oxygen. Botanists in the process of studying various species have revealed many interesting facts about plants.
The most unusual facts about plant life
1. An unusual plant grows on planet Earth - ceratonia. Surprisingly, it always produces seeds weighing exactly 0.2 g. In ancient times, ceratonia seeds were used by jewelers as miniature weights, and now this measure is called a carat.
2. On the island of Mindanao, rainbow eucalyptus trees grow with colorful bright bark. The fact is that the bark from these trees leaves in the form of many narrow strips, and a new one forms in place of the old bark. Initially, it has a bright green color, and as it grows and ages, it becomes blue, purple and even pink-orange.
3. The thickest long-lived trees live in the African savannahs. These are the famous baobabs. With a relatively low height of 18-25 m, the circumference of their trunk can be more than 10 m. And there are record holders with a trunk girth of 50 m. Their life expectancy is from a thousand to more than five thousand years.
4. The oldest plant on earth is seaweed.
5. The fastest growing tree in nature is bamboo from South and East Asia. It stretches 75-90 cm per day.
6. Interesting from the life of animals and plants: there are more than 10 thousand poisonous plants on the planet. For example, Indians processed arrowheads with curare poison and so went to hunt wild animals. And the natives in Africa, in order to defeat a large animal on the spot, used poison from the seeds of strophanthus.
7. There are seemingly harmless plants that are actually carnivorous. They are able to "eat" insects and some arthropods. These plants secrete digestive juice, with the help of which they dissolve their prey, thereby obtaining nutrients. Such predators include: sarracenia, nepenthes, genlisea, darlingtonia, butterwort, sundew, venus flytrap and many others.
8. In the Amazon River, you can find an unusual plant of the water lily family - Victoria. Its leaves reach three meters in diameter. On their surface, they can withstand weights up to 30 kg.
10. Many centenarians among conifers. And the oldest tree on the planet is a pine tree, which is 4.5 thousand years old. It grows in the USA.
11. Interesting data about gymnosperms are known to scientists, of which there are more than 800 species on earth. Gymnosperm trees often reach gigantic sizes. So, sequoia with its average height of about 100 m can reach 18-20 m in diameter and weigh about 1000 tons.
12. Yew is a unique tree. It has several tops. When one of the tops reaches a certain size, it dies off, and the other top continues to grow.
14. There are more than 250 thousand species of angiosperms (flowering) plants on earth. They grow from the snowy Arctic to tropical forests. Angiosperms can be found not only in places familiar to us (garden, park), but also in water (water lilies), sandy deserts and steppes (saxaul, camel thorn).
Among flowering plants, orchids stand out. The smallest orchid in the world has flowers only 2 mm in diameter. The world's largest orchid is the tiger orchid. Its inflorescences can reach a length of up to 3 m. And there is also a type of orchid that we eat. This is flat leaf vanilla.
15. Spore plants are also of interest. The largest group of this plant species are ferns. There are more than 300 genera and 10 thousand species. Fern plants appeared over 350 million years ago. They grow everywhere: in the forest, on the trunks and branches of large trees, in the swamp, in rock crevices, in rivers and lakes, along roadsides and even on the walls of city houses.
In New Zealand, a black tree fern grows, which reaches 20 m in height and has a girth of about 50 cm. And Japanese scientists have found that the fern removes radiation from the body.
16. The second most popular spore plants are mosses, one of the most ancient plants. It is believed that mosses appeared on earth after algae and were the first plants to come to land.
17. Cultivated plants are of great value to humans, because we use their fruits for food. Some fascinating information about cultivated plants is also known. For example, in ancient times it was believed that the orange helps to cure the plague. For this reason, juicy fruits were simply sky-high and were available only to the nobility. And the familiar strawberry is the only berry in which the seeds are located on the outside, and not inside.
18. Cultivated plants include cereals, and sometimes they are used not only for food. For example, in ancient China, rice was used as a lie detector. The accused had to take a mouthful of rice and then spit it out. If the cereal remained dry, i.e. everything dried up in the defendant's mouth, then he was found guilty.
19. Do not forget about indoor plants. Plants and flowers in the house not only decorate the territory and create comfort, but can also affect the mood and health of those who grow them. For example, aloe has healing properties, and a fat woman, or in other words a “money tree”, attracts positive energy to the house and attracts financial well-being.
20. For children, chlorophytum is well suited, which will remove all harmful impurities from the air of the nursery and saturate it with oxygen. In order for peace to reign in the family, you can plant a ficus. And cacti take on negative energy.
21. And in our country you can find plants that are unique in nature. For example, in the vastness of Russia, a weed called hairy peas grows. It is harmful to winter crops, but its seeds can be eaten. They taste like lentil seeds.
22. Wintering horsetail grows in the middle latitudes of Russia. Its stems are so hard that they can scratch steel.
23. The most common tree in Russian forests is larch. This species makes up about 40% of all forest trees. One of the hardiest plants, larch can withstand temperatures down to -60 degrees.
24. One of the most durable types of trees is considered to be the Far Eastern birch, it is also “iron birch” or “Schmidt birch”. The strength of its wood is 1.5 times that of cast iron.
25. For children, information about the plants of Russia will be interesting. On the shores of the Black Sea, you can see a plant from the pumpkin family called "mad cucumber". The plant got such a funny name because of the unusual way of dispersing seeds: a ripe fruit, it is worth touching it lightly, jumps off the leg, and mucus with seeds is thrown out of the hole at a distance of 1-2 m.
It is impossible to tell all the most interesting things about all the plants on earth, because there are more than 390,000 species in total, and a lot of unique information is known about each. Plants form one of the biological kingdoms, along with animals, fungi, bacteria and viruses. And for a person this kingdom is the most friendly and useful.
