Plant varieties:There are more than 300,000 species of plant. They show a wide diversity of forms and life-styles, ranging, for example, from delicate liverworts, adapted for life in a damp habitat, to cacti, capable of surviving in the desert, and from herbaceous plants, such as corn, which completes its life-cycle in one year, to the giant redwood tree, which can live for thousands of years. This diversity reflects the adaptations of plants to survive in a wide range of habitats. This is seen most clearly in the flowering plants (phylum Angiospermophyta), which are the most numerous, with over 250,000 species, and the most widespread, being found from the tropics to the poles. Despite their diversity, plants share certain characteristics: typically, plants are green, and make their food by photosynthesis; and most plants live in or on a substrate, such as soil, and do not actively move. Algae (kingdom Protista) and fungi (kingdom Fungi) have some plantlike characteristics and are often studied alongside plants, although they are not true plants.
Plant varieties:There are more than 300,000 species of plant. They show a wide diversity of forms and life-styles, ranging, for example, from delicate liverworts, adapted for life in a damp habitat, to cacti, capable of surviving in the desert, and from herbaceous plants, such as corn, which completes its life-cycle in one year, to the giant redwood tree, which can live for thousands of years. This diversity reflects the adaptations of plants to survive in a wide range of habitats. This is seen most clearly in the flowering plants (phylum Angiospermophyta), which are the most numerous, with over 250,000 species, and the most widespread, being found from the tropics to the poles. Despite their diversity, plants share certain characteristics: typically, plants are green, and make their food by photosynthesis; and most plants live in or on a substrate, such as soil, and do not actively move. Algae (kingdom Protista) and fungi (kingdom Fungi) have some plantlike characteristics and are often studied alongside plants, although they are not true plants.
