UNIT 1 THE WORLD OF THE PLANT
(JCPaylangco) • Plant taxonomy
a subdiscipline of systematics, deals with the
• Briefly describe the field of botany, and give description, naming, and classification of plants
short definitions of the subdisciplines of plant
biology.
• Summarize and discuss the features of plants
and other organisms that distinguish them from
• Paleobotany
nonliving things.
• Discuss the following: is the study of the biology and the evolution of
-importance of plants plants in the geologic past
-plants characteristics and diversity
-plants and people Importance of Plants
-Ethnobotany and economic botany 1. Source of food
-The origin of agriculture 2. Essential roles in the environment (lowers
-Natural plant products CO2, filter water and prevent erosion, etc.)
3. Provide us with a variety of products (oils,
Botany paper, dyes, lumber, fibers, etc.)
• Also known as Plant Biology 4. Important tools or as building materials
• encompasses the origin, diversity,
5. Plants create habitats for many organisms.
structure, and internal processes of plants
as well as their relationships with other
Plant characteristics and diversity
organisms and with the nonliving physical
• Eukaryotic and multicellular
environment.
• Autotrophs - photosynthetic
Disciplines of Botany • Cell Wall- cellulose
• Plant molecular biology • Mostly terrestrial and some are aquatic
Study the structures and functions of important Is algae a plant?
biological molecules such as proteins and Algae are not a single taxonomic entity.
nucleic acids Molecular phylogeny (gene sequencing)
and other characters show they belong to
• Plant biochemistry four kingdoms: Kingdom Plantae (e.g.
study of the chemical interactions within plants, chlorophytes and rhodophytes - green and
including the variety of chemicals that plants red algae), the Kingdom Chromista (e.g.
produce. phaeophytes - brown algae -
dinoflagellates, and diatoms), the
• Plant cell biology
Kingdom Protista (e.g. Euglenophytes),
Encompasses the structures, functions, and life
and the Kingdom Bacteria (cyanophytes).
processes of plant cells
http://www.seaweed.ie/qanda/index.
php
• Plant anatomy
microscopic plant structure (cells and tissues)
• Alternation of Generations
• Plant morphology
refers to the structures of plant parts such as
leaves, roots, and stems, including their
evolution and development
• Plant physiology
study such processes as photosynthesis and
mineral nutrition to understand how plants
function.
• Plant genetics
study heredity and variation
• Plant ecology
study of the interrelationships among plants
and between plants and their environment • Embryophytes – protected embryo
• Plant systematics
encompasses the evolutionary relationships
among different plant groups
CSU Dept of Biology Course: BIOL 101-General Botany
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an organism to perpetuate its traits beyond an
individual’s own death.
Asexual reproduction
Plant share many important characteristics • does not involve the union of gametes
with other organisms (reproductive cells). One parent gives rise to
offspring that are virtually identical to it.
Compared to Animals
Example: budding, grafting, cutting and the
• Plants are easy to overlook or take for
The mother-in-law plant. - This plant
granted because they appear so passive.
(Kalanchoe pinnata) produces young plants
• Plants do not appear to “live” in the sense
asexually along the margins of
that animals live.
• Plants do not run or swim or slither or fly; the leaves. When the young plants attain a
they do not eat other plants or animal certain size, they drop off and root in the
prey; nor do they reproduce by an obvious ground. Each young plant is genetically
coupling of two partners. identical to its parent.
• Despite the perceived differences between
plants and animals, however, plants share
many important characteristics with other
organisms.
Characteristics of Plants
1. Plants are highly organized
Plants have a complex organization, composed
of cells, that can perform all the activities
associated with life.
The biological world is organized on more than
just a cellular level it also includes the molecular
level.
2. Plants take in and use energy
Sexual reproduction
All organisms require energy for their activities,
• involves the union of gametes that may or
which include growth, repair, reproduction, and
may not come from two separate
maintenance.
individuals. The offspring are not exact
The two most important energy related activities
copies of a single parent but are products of
in the living world are photosynthesis and
the unique combination of traits inherited
cellular respiration.
from both parents
Plants perform photosynthesis, essential for
6. Plant DNA transmits information from one
almost all life. In this process, radiant (light)
generation to the next
energy from the environment is converted to
The characteristics of an organism are encoded
chemical energy that is stored in molecules
in its genes, which are the units of hereditary
such as glucose.
information.
The energy can also be transferred from one
An organism’s environment also plays a crucial
organism to another.
role in determining its characteristics, but always
3. Plant responds to stimuli
within that organism’s genetic constraints.
Stimuli to which plants responds to include
changes in the direction, color or luminosity of
• Genes are composed of deoxyribonucleic
light; in temperature or in the orientation toward
acid (DNA), the organic molecule that stores
gravity; and in the chemical composition of the
and carries important genetic information in
surrounding soil, air, or water
cells.
4. Plants grow and develop
• Genes ensure that a bean plant produces
Growth is an increase in the size and mass of an
seeds that grow into bean plants, not into
organism.
roses or cucumbers.
– In plants, growth results from both an
7. Plant populations undergo genetic changes over
increase in the number of cells and an
time
increase in the size of cells.
Adaptations are characteristics that enable
Development includes all the changes in a plant
an organism to better survive in a certain
or other organism from the start of its life.
environment
5. Plants reproduce
Example: The thick, succulent (fleshy, water-
Reproduction is the formation of a new
storing) stem of a cactus is an adaptation that
individual by sexual or asexual means, it is the
enables it to live in dry regions where precipitation
most distinctive characteristic of life. It enables
is low. Likewise, the prickly spines covering the
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surface of the cactus stem are an adaptation that study, it became increasingly obvious that many did
discourages desert animals from eating the not fi t well into either the plant or animal kingdom.
succulent stem tissue.
For example, bacteria, single-celled organisms that
• Every organism contains many interdependent
lack cell nuclei, were originally considered plants.
adaptations that help it survive in the particular The fact that all bacteria lack nuclei is now
environment to which it is adapted.
considered a fundamental difference between them
• Evolution, the process by which organisms adapt and other organisms—a difference more significant
to their environment over time, is the genetic than the differences between plants and animals.
change in a population of organisms from With our present knowledge, it is difficult to
generation to generation. consider bacteria as plants. See more discussion in
Botany ebook of Linda Berg(2008).
• Evolutionary processes typically require long
periods of time and occur over many Plants and People History
generations. • Early human cultures were hunter/
gatherers. One of the first professions was
botany (plant taxonomy), because it was
important knowledge to be able and distinguish
poisonous from
edible plants.
• About 8,000 -12,000 years ago something
happened that changed the heart of human
society. What was it? Answer: Agriculture!
• Agriculture - fossilized plant remains (e.g.,
seeds, charred plant remains, pollen) in
archaeological digs of human encampments
place the discovery of agriculture about 8,000 to
12,000 years ago.
• Most ancient civilizations (e.g., Chinese,
Egyptians, Assyrian, Inca, Mayan, etc.) practiced
agriculture regardless of their geographical
Biological Diversity location in the world. Indigenous plants (and
• Biologists estimate that there are at least 5 animals) were domesticated by each respective
million to 10 million species. society.
• more than 330,000 plant species and more
than 1 million animal species have been The Origin of Agriculture
identified. 1. Dump heap or Trash heap hypothesis (Edgar
• The kingdoms and domains of life. Anderson, 1952).
– early people may have discovered
that the plants collected in the wild
grew in refuse piles.
For hundreds of years, biologists viewed organisms
as belonging to two broad groups, the plant and Garbage sites may have been the breeding grounds
animal kingdoms. As organisms underwent closer for various species. They would have been open
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sites, rich in nutrients. Therefore, agriculture may Plants for Fiber: Cotton
have started accidentally. • Cotton is a natural fiber that absorbs
moisture and then allows it to evaporate
2. Two hypotheses about origin of agriculture: easily, making it the world's most important
– Independent discovery in different parts of nonedible plant.
world. • The cotton fibers come from the plant's
– Diffusionist hypothesis - discovery seeds. The silky fibers are strong, flexible
originated in one part of the world and and have a gradual spiral that causes the
spread from one civilization to another. strands to interlock when twisted, making
There has been an argument about whether them ideal for spinning into thread.
agriculture originated once (diffusionist origin) • The second layer of fibers are shorter and
and then spread around the globe; or whether it are 'fuzzy' - they are used to make cotton
originated independently around the globe batting, rayon and various types of plastic
(independent origin). Most currently believe that and paper.
it happened independently because (a) its not too Plants for Fiber: Hemp
difficult to imagine it occurring; and (b) it happened • early makers of jeans used hemp, which is
fast.Reference: the oldest cultivated fiber plant in the world.
https://employees.csbsju.edu/ssaupe/biol106/lect • Other products included the first Bibles, sails
ures/origin_of_agriculture.htm and ropes.
• Hemp has a less negative effect on the
Ethnobotany environment, because
• the scientific study of the traditional knowledge – it uses less land area than trees
and customs of a people concerning plants and – can be harvested in a year
their medical, religious, and other uses. – lasts longer than paper
• An ethnobotanist thus strives to document the – can be recycled up to seven times
local customs involving the practical uses of – chokes out weeds naturally is not
local flora for many aspects of life, such as prone to insect pests.
plants as medicines, foods, and clothing. Plants for Fiber: Flax
• Flax is a food and fiber crop. The flax fibers,
Economic botany which are smooth and straight, are taken
• Economic botany is the study of the from the stem of the plant and are two to
relationship between people (individuals and three times stronger than cotton fibers.
cultures) and plants. • Flax fiber is used for making cereals, linen
• Study plants with commercial importance; paper, linseed oil - which is used as a drying
oil in paints and varnish - and in products
• Economic botany intersects many fields
such as linoleum and printing inks.
including established disciplines such as
agronomy, anthropology, archaeology,
Plants for Medicine
chemistry, economics, ethnobotany, • Herbal remedies are a common example of
ethnology, forestry, genetic resources,
how plants are used to prevent illness.
geography, geology, horticulture, medicine, • Plant medicines include: tea (made from
microbiology, nutrition, pharmacognosy, and
ginger root) - is used to soothe an upset
pharmacology.
stomach; white willow bark - is used to ease
• This link between botany and anthropology pain (aspirin)
explores the ways humans use plants for food, • opium from the poppy seed pod - thick milky
medicines, and commerce. fluid provides a powerful pain medication –
morphine; codeine is also found in the poppy
Natural Plant Products - it is used in cough medicines
• quinine - which comes from the cinchona
Plants for Fiber tree - is used to prevent malaria
• Plants provide fibers for clothing, paper and
shelter
• The aboriginal people from the west coast
wove cloth from the bark of the western red
cedar tree Opium
• Much of our clothing today comes from
synthetic (manufactured) material, such as
polyester and nylon but natural fibers still
provide important resources for clothes.
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