Plants & Trees Facts for Kids
Fascinating facts about the plant world
Wild garlic can carpet entire woodland floors in spring, filling the air with its garlicky scent, and every part of the plant — leaves, flowers, and bulb — is edible.
Many plants can regrow from very small pieces — a single leaf of a jade plant placed on soil can grow roots and become a whole new plant, a process called vegetative propagation.
General Sherman, a giant sequoia in California, is the heaviest single tree on Earth, weighing about 1,385 tonnes — roughly the weight of 200 African elephants.
When a tumbleweed plant dies, it dries out and breaks off at the roots, then rolls across the landscape in the wind, scattering thousands of seeds as it tumbles.
Eucalyptus trees produce a powerful oil in their leaves that is used as a natural antiseptic and is also the main food source for koalas.
Natural latex from rubber trees is used in more than 40,000 everyday products, from rubber gloves to car tyres to surgical equipment.
Scientists trained mimosa plants to stop reacting to harmless water drops after repeated exposure — the plants 'remembered' for weeks, suggesting a simple form of learning.
The region of soil directly around plant roots, called the rhizosphere, is host to billions of microbes per gram; plants actively recruit specific bacteria and fungi by exuding particular chemicals.
Flowering plants underwent a dramatic diversification during the Cretaceous period about 100 million years ago, an event Darwin called 'an abominable mystery' because it happened so rapidly.
Plant cells expand by taking in water; the resulting pressure against the cell wall, called turgor pressure, is what keeps soft plant tissues firm — it also drives cell growth and movement of guard cells.