Kurdistan Region-Iraq

Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research

Salahaddin University Hawler

College of Basic Education

General Science

Report Title

The plant world

Student Name: Amina Arf Muhammad

Supervised by: D. Shahla mahmood Muhamad

Class: First Stage

Course Title: Botany

Department: General Science

College of Basic Education

Salahaddin University-Erbil

Academic Year 2019-2020

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CONTENTS

1- INTRODUCTION

2- DEFINITION OF THE KINGDOM

3- NONVASCULAR PLANTS

4- VASCULAR PLANTS

5- REPRODUCTION AND LIFE HISTORIES

6- PLANT PHYSIOLOGY

7- ECOLOGY

8- EVOLUTION AND PALEOBOTANY

9- CLASSIFICATION

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 Plant

(kingdom Plantae), any multicellular eukaryotic life-form characterized by

photosynthetic nutrition (a characteristic possessed by all plants except some
parasitic plants and underground orchids), in which chemical energy is
produced from water, minerals, and carbon dioxide with the aid of pigments and
the radiant energy of the Sun, essentially unlimited growth at localized regions,
cells that contain cellulose in their walls and are therefore to some extent rigid,
the absence of organs of locomotion, resulting in a more or less stationary
existence, the absence of nervous systems, and life histories that show an
alteration of haploid and diploid generations, with the dominance of one over
the other being taxonomically significant.

Plants range in size from diminutive duckweeds only a few millimetres in length
to the giant sequoias of California that reach 90 metres (300 feet) or more in
height. There are an estimated 390,900 different species of plants known to
science, and new species are continually being described, particularly from
previously unexplored tropical areas of the world. Plants evolved from aquatic
ancestors and have subsequently migrated over the entire surface of Earth,
inhabiting tropical, Arctic, desert, and Alpine regions. Some plants have
returned to an aquatic habitat in either fresh or salt water.

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 Nonvascular Plants

Informally known as bryophytes, nonvascular plants lack specialized

vascular tissue (xylem and phloem) for internal water and food conduction and
support. They also do not possess true roots, stems, or leaves. Some
larger mosses, however, contain a central core of elongated thick-walled cells
called hydroids that are involved in water conduction and that have been
compared to the xylem elements of other plants. Bryophytes are second
in diversity only to the flowering plants (angiosperms) and are generally
regarded as composed of three divisions: Bryophtya
(the mosses), Marchantiophyta (the liverworts),
and Anthocerotophyta (the hornworts).

Because bryophytes generally lack conducting cells and a well-developed

cuticle that would limit dehydration, they depend on their immediate
surroundings for an adequate supply of moisture. As a result, most bryophytes
live in moist or wet shady locations, growing on rocks, trees, and soil. Some,
however, have become adapted to totally aquatic habitats; others have become
adapted to alternately wet and dry environments by growing during wet
periods and becoming dormant during dry intervals. Although bryophytes are
widely distributed, occurring in practically all parts of the world, none are
found in salt water. Ecologically, some mosses are considered pioneer plants
because they can invade bare areas. They possess the
photosynthetic pigment chlorophyll (both a and b forms) and carotenoids in
cell organelles called chloroplasts. The life histories of these plants show a
well-defined alternation of generations, with the independent and free-
living gametophyte as the dominant photosynthetic phase in the life cycle..

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 Vascular Plants

Vascular plants (tracheophytes) differ from the nonvascular bryophytes in that

they possess specialized supporting and water-conducting tissue, called xylem,
and food-conducting tissue, called phloem. The xylem is composed of nonliving
cells (tracheids and vessel elements) that are stiffened by the presence of lignin,
a hardening substance that reinforces the cellulose cell wall. The living sieve
elements that comprise the phloem are not lignified. Xylem and phloem are
collectively called vascular tissue and form a central column (stele) through the
plant axis. The ferns, gymnosperms, and flowering plants are all vascular plants.
Because they possess vascular tissues, these plants have true stems, leaves, and
roots. Before the development of vascular tissues, the only plants of considerable
size existed in aquatic environments where support and water conduction were
not necessary. A second major difference between the vascular plants and
bryophytes is that the larger, more conspicuous generation among vascular
plants is the sporophytic phase of the life cycle.

Reproduction And Life Histories

Each organism from inception to death goes through a sequence of genetically

programmed developmental events constituting a life history. In eukaryotic
organisms, development involves cellular events such as mitosis, meiosis, and
syngamy (fertilization), which variously proceed by nuclear division
(karyokinesis), cytoplasmic division (cytokinesis), cytoplasmic fusion without
the union of nuclei (plasmogamy), or nuclear fusion (karyogamy).

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 Life histories

The chromosome number in cells may be haploid, with one set

of chromosomes per cell (written 1n); diploid, with two sets (2n); polyploid,
with three or more sets; or dikaryotic, with a pair of nuclei in a cell (n + n), a
condition that occurs mainly in fungi. Three types of sexual life histories have
been recognized for the eukaryotic organisms: 1n, or haplontic; 2n,
or diplontic; and 1n-2n (2n-1n). The former two types have collectively been
called haplobiontic or monobiontic, because the life histories include only one
phase; the third type has been called haplodiplontic, diplohaplontic,
diplobiontic, dibiontic, or sporic, because the life history involves
two alternating multicellular phases, or generations. Algae and fungi have
many variants of all three types, especially the first, whereas land plants have
the third type exclusively. In addition, all land plants are strictly oogamous,
having motile sperm and nonmotile eggs. (In contrast, the algae and fungi may
be oogamous or, frequently, isogamous or anisogamous, the latter conditions
characterized by morphologically similar gametes that are either of the same
size or with the female gametes of a larger size, respectively.)

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 Plant Physiology
Plant nutrition includes the nutrients necessary for the growth, maintenance,
and reproduction of individual plants; the mechanisms by which plants acquire
such nutrients; and the structural, physiological, and biochemical roles those
nutrients play in metabolism.

All organisms obtain their nutrients from the environment, but not all
organisms require the same nutrients, nor do they assimilate these nutrients in
the same way. There are two basic nutritional
types, autotrophs and heterotrophs. Heterotrophs require both inorganic and
organic (carbon-containing) compounds as nutrient sources. Autotrophs obtain
their nutrients from inorganic compounds, and their source of carbon is carbon
dioxide (CO2). An autotroph is photoautotrophic if light energy is required to
assimilate CO2 into the organic constituents of the cell. Furthermore, a
photoautotroph that also uses water and liberates oxygen in the energy-trapping
process of photosynthesis is an oxygenic photoautotroph. Earth’s first such
organisms are believed to have been the major sources of the present-day
oxygen content of the atmosphere (approximately 21 percent). Almost all
plants, as well as many prokaryotes and protists, are characteristically oxygenic
photoautotrophs.

Plants, as autotrophic organisms, use light energy to

photosynthesize sugars from CO2 and water. They also synthesize amino
acids and vitamins from carbon fixed in photosynthesis and from inorganic
elements garnered from the environment. (Animals, as heterotrophic
organisms, cannot synthesize many nutrients, including certain amino acids
and vitamins, and so must take them from the environment.)

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 Evolution And Paleobotany
The evolutionary history of plants is recorded in fossils preserved in lowland or
marine sediments. Some fossils preserve the external form of plant parts;
others show cellular features; and still others consist of microfossils such as
pollen and spores. In rare instances, fossils may even display the ultrastructural
or chemical features of the plants they represent. The fossil record reveals a
pattern of accelerating rates of evolution coupled with increasing diversity
andcomplexity of biological communities that began with the invasion of land
and continued with the progressive colonization of
the continents. At present, fossil evidence of land plants dates to
the Ordovician Period (about 485.4 million to 443.8 million years ago) of
the Paleozoic Era. However, research using “molecular clock” methodology,
which uses genetics to estimate how long species have been separated from a
common ancestor, suggests that plants started to colonize
terrestrial environments around 500 million years ago, about the middle of
the Cambrian Period.

By far the most diverse and conspicuous living members of the plant kingdom
are vascular plants (tracheophytes), in which the sporophyte phase of the life
history is dominant. (See above Life histories.) Fossil remains of vascular
plants provide evidence for evolutionary changes in the structure of the plant
body (sporophyte and gametophyte), in the variety of plant forms, in the
complexity of the life history, in the tolerance for ecological conditions, and in
systematic diversity. Nonvascular plants, or bryophytes (mosses, liverworts,
and hornworts), are much smaller and less diverse than vascular plants. The
first evidence for liverworts occurs in rocks laid down between 473 million and
471 million years ago, during the Ordovician Period, whereas the

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 earliest moss fossils are from the Permian Period (298.9 million to 251.9
million years ago)..

Conclusion
Plants are very important because they are the backbone of all life on Earth and
an essential resource for human beings. They provide food, air, habitat,
medicine and help to distribute and purify water. Make sure you celebrate the
world's plants and help to conserve them!

After collecting data and observing my bean plants for seven weeks, my results
do not support my hypothesis. I thought the plant that was fertilized with fish
water would grow better than the plant fertilized by man-made fertilizer. After
measuring the height of the plants and the leaf sizes weekly, they both grew at
almost the same rate, but the plant fertilized by man-made fertilizer looked
more vibrant and healthy. Since both plants grew at a relatively good rate,
there are advantages in using fish water as fertilizer. For instance, instead of
wasting your aquarium water when you clean out your tank you could use the
water to fertilize your plants. This will help conserve our precious water
supply. As a result of my experiment, I would continue to fertilize my plants
with fish water because I am helping the environment by recycling and not
wasting.

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 List of references

1- https://www.britannica.com/

2- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant

3- https://www.sciencedaily.com/

4- https://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/

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