Plants & Trees Facts for Kids
Fascinating facts about the plant world
Seeds contain a hormone called abscisic acid that keeps them dormant; when conditions are right — warmth and moisture — other hormones override it and germination begins.
Carnivorous trapping mechanisms evolved independently at least six separate times in different plant lineages, a striking example of convergent evolution.
Corn and sugarcane use a more efficient form of photosynthesis called C4, which concentrates carbon dioxide around the enzyme Rubisco and greatly reduces water loss in hot climates.
A seagrass meadow of Posidonia oceanica in the Mediterranean is estimated to be up to 200,000 years old, making it potentially the world's oldest known living organism.
The plant hormone auxin accumulates on the shaded side of a stem, causing faster cell elongation there and bending the stem toward the light — the cellular basis of phototropism.
Plants produce thousands of compounds called secondary metabolites — including caffeine, nicotine, and morphine — primarily as defences against insects, fungi, and grazing animals.
Most of the coal we burn today was formed from giant tree ferns and club mosses that died and were buried in swamps during the Carboniferous period, 300 million years ago.
Legumes like clover and beans host nitrogen-fixing bacteria in nodules on their roots; these bacteria convert atmospheric nitrogen into ammonia the plant can use as fertiliser.
Grafting is a technique where the shoot of one plant is joined to the roots of another, allowing farmers to combine disease-resistant roots with high-quality fruit varieties on a single tree.
Gymnosperms, including conifers and cycads, produce 'naked seeds' not enclosed in a fruit — this distinguishes them from flowering plants (angiosperms).