the.com/plants
the silent strategists who eat sunlight, manipulate insects, and outlived the dinosaurs without moving an inch
means Living organisms that typically make their own food from sunlight through photosynthesis, usually rooted in one place — including trees, flowers, grasses, ferns, and mosses.
from From Latin 'planta,' meaning a sprout, shoot, or cutting — the bit you'd push into the soil. The same root gives us 'plant' as a verb, since to plant was literally to press a shoot into the ground (some link it to 'planta,' the sole of the foot, as if you tamped the earth down with your heel). It traveled through Old English 'plante' and Old French before settling into the broad green sense we use today.
- chemical warfare
- release toxins to poison rival neighboring plants
- distress calls
- emit airborne chemicals when chewed to summon predator bugs
- oldest clone
- a Tasmanian shrub has lived 43,000 years
- oxygen debt
- most breathable air comes from ocean plankton
- deceptive bloom
- some orchids mimic female bees to trick mates
bristlecone pine — methuselah, a great basin bristlecone pine in california, is 5,067 years old
giant sequoia — general sherman in california is the largest tree by volume on earth at 52,500 cubic meters
titan arum — corpse flower at kew gardens blooms once every 8-10 years with a fetid smell that attracts pollinators