Kingdom Plantae

1. Kingdom Plantae

2. Plants and You… 1. Most of the oxygen you breathe 2. Most of the food you eat 3. Most of the environment you live in 4. The clothes you wear 5. Beverages you drink 6. Paper 7. Wood 8. Beauty 9. Keep CO2 from building up in atmosphere

3. All green plants have these things in common: • Cell walls made of cellulose. • Store excess sugars as starches. • Ability to produce chloroplasts • Same life cycle http://users.sunbeach.net/cmsc/hout2.htm

5. Plants are the foundation of all terrestrial habitats, and serve as terrestrial Earth’s primary autotrophs, making organic molecules that will cycle through the food webs of most ecosystems. The photosynthetic capabilities of plants ultimately allow all terrestrial members of the animal kingdom to survive.

7. Multicellular algae are generally found in aquatic environments. When the first plants that evolved from green algae made the move to terrestrial environments (land) back in the Silurian period (435 to 410 million years ago), they were faced with many new challenges that had not been a problem for their aquatic ancestors. Most of these challenges were a result of the relative lack of water present in terrestrial environments. The challenges include: 1. support of the plant against gravity, 2. finding and taking in water for metabolic processes, 3. reproduction with motile gametes, 4. greater variability and extremes of climate 5. spatial separation of nutrients.

8. Mosses (bryophytes) • 10000 species alive today • Live in wet habitats • Need water to reproduce because they have motile sperm • Have no true roots (rhizoids anchor them to the substrate) • They have no true vascular tissue for water transport • They are excellent pollution (toxin) monitors in an environment

9. Sphagnum moss has been used for packing plants, dressing wounds, and lining baby layettes for centuries because of its incredible water absorbing properties. • Sphagnum can absorb more than twice as much moisture as cotton, a 2-oz. dressing absorbing up to 2 lb.

10. Moss Life Cycle

11. Ferns(Filicinophyta) • Have true roots and true vascular tissues (better adapted to terrestrial enviro.) • Still need water for reproduction (motile sperm) • Evolved before the dinosaurs and 200 million years before flowering plants

12. Fern Life Cycle

13. On to the seed plants: we can now completely move onto land. No longer need water for reproduction. The Gymnosperms (cones) The Angiosperms (flowering plants)

14. The Gymnosperms • Have seeds • Seeds can be remarkably tolerant of environmental extremes heat, cold and drought. • Seeds are “naked” enclosed in a cone (generally) • Plants now have pollen for fertilization Jack pine

15. Pine Ginkgo

16. The gymnosperms include the oldest and largest trees known. The Bristle Cone Pines, some over 4000 years old are the oldest living plants. The Giant Redwoods are over 100 m tall - the tallest plants known. Both are native to California. 

17. The Biggest Plant??? • This is “General Sherman” the largest plant on earth. • A Gymnosperm • Located in California • Statistics are based on both estimates and measurements • 6167 tons • 275 feet tall (85 m) • 83 ft circumference at base (25.5 m) • 3500 years old

18. Nova Scotia’ Provincial Tree Red Spruce Does well in poor acid soils like those found in NS

19. Another Local Dominant Gymnosperm White Pine Both White pine and Red spruce dominated local forests but were mostly cut down in colonial times. They were used to make masts for British ships. (Very tall straight trunks) Later generations are not given the chance by foresters to grow to full size before being cut. Wonder how this particular tree avoided the axe/chainsaw?

20. Gymnosperm Life Cycle

21. Angiosperms: the flowering plants • Ovule enclosed in an ovary • Flowers as reproductive organs (they attract animals, insects for pollination: to get the pollen to the ovules)

23. Angiosperm Life Cycle

24. Economic Botany Economic Botany Europeans were introduced to the tomato in the mid-16th century, and generally reacted with fear and scorn, due largely to the tomato's membership in the family Solanacea, which includes many poisonous species such as the deadly nightshade. The Italians, however, soon embraced the tomato, dubbing it pomi d'oro (golden apple) and adopting it into their cuisine. The French gave this new fruit an even more romantic name: pomme d'amour (love apple). Still, it was not until the 1830s that the tomato was anything more than a curiosity in England or America.

25. “Crops” are all Angiosperms

26. The earliest record of chocolate was over fifteen hundred years ago in the Central American rain forests, where the tropical mix of high rain fall combined with high year round temperatures and humidity provide the ideal climate for cultivation of the plant from which chocolate is derived, the Cacao Tree. • The Maya brewed a spicy, bitter sweet drink by roasting and pounding the seeds of the Cacao tree (cocoa beans) with maize and Capsicum (Chilli) peppers and letting the mixture ferment. MONTEZUMA, the Aztec emperor, was said to drink up to 50 goblets of chocolate per day. Theobroma cacao "Food of Gods"

27. Tim’s anyone? • Coffee was first discovered in Eastern Africa in an area we know today as Ethiopia. A popular legend refers to a goat herder by the name of Kaldi, who observed his goats acting unusually frisky after eating berries from a bush. Curious about this phenomena, Kaldi tried eating the berries himself. He found that these berries gave him a renewed energy. The news of this energy laden fruit quickly spread throughout the region.

28. Medicinal Plants Some 70% of all our medicinal compounds are derived from plants Researchers are searching for new ones all the time.