What is a Plant?

1. What is a Plant?

2. Plant Characteristics • Photosynthesis • Plants are able to make their own food using a process called photosynthesis • Because plants make their own food they are called producers

3. Cuticles • Plants are protected from drying out by a waxy layer called a cuticle

4. Cell Walls • Plant cells are surrounded by a rigid structure called a cell wall • Cell walls act like a plant’s skeleton and help to hold the plant upright

5. Plant Life Cycle and Reproduction • Plants have two stages in their life cycle, the sporophyte stage and the gametophyte stage. • In sporophyte stage plants make spores. In the right environment the spores will grow into new plants called gametophytes • In the gametophyte stage the plants make egg and sperm cells. When the two meet the eggs are fertilized and they grow into sporophytes

6. Four Groups of Plants • Group #1 • Nonvascular plants • Plants that do not have specialized tissues to move water and nutrients through themselves • These types of plants depend on diffusion to move materials from one part of the plant to another • These plants tend to be small • Examples would be mosses and liverworts

7. Vascular Plants – 3 Groups • Plants that have specialized tissues to move materials from one part of a plant to another. Tissues known as xylem and phloem. • Group #2 • Seedless vascular plants have no seeds • Group #3 • Gymnosperms • A group of vascular plants that are nonflowering seed plants • Group #4 • Angiosperms • A group of vascular plants that are flowering seed plants