• Question: what do you find intersting about plants

    Asked by 748cbsf22 to Thomas on 15 Jun 2016.
    • Photo: Thomas Biggans

      Thomas Biggans answered on 15 Jun 2016:

      Plants aren’t my area of expertise so I don’t know alot about them but they do have some interesting characteristics.

      Most plants can’t move so they have to make chemicals to protect themselves from attacks from insects and sometimes humans. We don’t touch poisonous plants and so their defence mechanism has worked and they live in peace.

      The chemical reactions that go on in plants are important for us. The amazon rainforest produces half the world’s oxygen supply, some medicines have plant origins and there are alot of people in the world who can’t get through a day without caffeine even though in the plant world caffeine is a pesticide (a chemical to stop insects attacking the plants).

      I think what I find most interesting is that there is so much variety in plants and they can achieve the same goal in so many different ways.

      What do you like about plants?

Comments

  • Photo: Rupesh

    Rupesh commented on :

    Plants are interesting because they have to find a way to adapt to the environment they are in. Whereas we can run away from natural disasters and make a shelter to protect ourselves but plants are not able to do this.

    For example when it is winter and we get snow, they are buried in snow for weeks and yet they are still fine. If that happened to us we would die. We would run away from a place where disease is spreading but plants cant and they need to find a way to fight these bugs, by producing poisonous chemicals like Thomas said.

    There are plants that survive in antarctic and there are plants that survive in the very hot Sahara desert. This shows how incredibly adaptable they are and it is interesting to find out how they are able to do this.