Why do we need plants?

Why?

You don’t have to be a gardener, a farmer, or a biologist to know how much we all rely on plants. We use plants for food, shelter, clothing, medicines and they provide even the air we breathe. Below, there are some examples in what way, we rely on plants?

Shelter

Protection and shelter are also an property of plants. The timber coming from trees, is used in the construction of many of our homes. Cotton plants provide us with cotton, which we use to make clothes, and furthermore, plants provide home and shelter and create habitats for many animals. In the tropics, a single tree can be the home of more than 1,000 different insect species.

Medicines

Did you know that native Americans used more than 2,000 wild plants for medicine? Even one quarter of all prescribed drugs, have plant origins. Taxol is used to treat ovarian cancer and was discovered in the bark of the Pacific yew. Aspirin, a very common drug, has its base in willow trees.

Industry

Many ingredients in cosmetics are provided by plants. Think of aloe and jojoba. Corn is used to produce a variety of products like soap, glue and plastics. Even nine rare meadow foams from California and Oregon, contain seed oils which can be used as an alternative to sperm whale oil, as industrial lubricants.

Inspiration

People are arguing, that the true value of plants lies not in their uses, but lies in their intrinsic value to life. While we can analyse many benefits that plants offer us, there is no way of measuring the value of living things or the inspiration or pleasure it can provide us.

Clean air and water

Plants are the basis of ecosystems and purify air and water. Green plants combine sunlight and carbon dioxide, through the process ofphotosynthesis, to fresh air. With every breath we take, we depend on the oxygen that is given off by plants.

Plants also are part of the water cycle. 90% or more of the water that is absorbed a plant’s roots, is eventually released back to the atmosphere.

Food

Plants are the foundation of most food webs on Earth. Even totally carnivorous animals, such as lions, need plants because their prey are plant eaters. Also, the wild relatives of the plants we grow and eat, are becoming increasingly important for breeding to make healthier and more productive crops. For example, the Texas wild rice. This type of rice is known only from one river in Texas and is being bred with northern wild rice, because people want to develop a strain suitable for mild climates.

Energy

Every time we turn on the lights in a room, we use electricity which is made with coal or other fossil fuels. Coal and other fossil fuels are formed by plants that lived a long time ago. Over 350 million years ago, giant relatives of today’s ferns and horsetails, became covered with mud as they died. In that way they were prevented from decaying. It took long time and compression to form coal or other fossil fuels of it.

Top 9 Most Interesting Trees in the World

by Tuesday Phillips , 07/29/10

Trees are the longest living organisms on earth and one of the planet’s most valuable natural resource. They purify the air we breath, improve water quality, prevent erosion of soil, provide food and shade, reduce noise pollution, and help make our surroundings more beautiful. With over 200,000 types of trees in world, there is no shortage of interesting species. From tallest to oldest, most haunted to most inhabitable, here are the top 9:

Coast Redwoods: Hyperion and Chandelier Tree

Redwood Forest, California

Photo via flickr by foggydave

Coast redwoods, not to be confused with Giant Sequoias, are the tallest trees in the world. The towering champion of all Coast Redwoods is a tree called Hyperion. Measuring over 379 feet ( 115 m) tall, Hyperion beat out the previous record holder, the Stratosphere Giant, in the Humboldt Redwoods State Park (at 370 feet / 112.8 m). In addition to having the world’s largest trees, Northern California is home to two Coast Redwoods in Leggett, California, that are wide enough to drive straight through! The most well known drive-through tree is the Chandelier Tree at 315 feet tall and with a 6 by 9 foot tall hole cut through its base.

Giant Sequoias: General Sherman Tree

Sequoia National Park, California

Photo via flickr by acmelucky777

As the world’s largest trees in terms of volume, Giant Sequoias only grow in California’s Sierra Nevada region. Among this cluster of voluminous trees is the largest of them all, the General Sherman. General Sherman stands at 275 feet (83.8 m) high, over 52,500 cubic feet of volume (1,486 m³), and over 6000 tons in weight. This massive tree is 2,200 years old and each year it adds enough wood to make a regular 60-foot tall tree!

Pando Tree ( or the Trembling Giant)

State of Utah

Photo via flickr by Cliff Stone

Pando, which means, “I spread” in Latin, couldn’t be a more perfectly-suited name for this particular species of tree. The Pando is a clonal colony of single male Quaking Aspen, which are all part of one unifying living organism and massive underground root system. Collectively, this plant as a whole, weighs 6,000 tons, making it the heaviest species in existence and the roots system of the Pando is one of the oldest living organisms known on the planet at about 80,000 years old.

Chapel Oak

Allouville Bellefosse, France

Photo via flickr by thetreehunter

The Chêne Chapelle, meaning “chapel oak,” in French is the most famous tree in France. More than just a tree, this living species is also a building and religious monument. Inside its hollow trunk are two chapels, which were built in 1669. There is also a spiral staircase built around the trunk, which provides access into the chapels. Sadly, the oak tree which the building was built around may not live much longer, as parts of the tree have been dying and falling apart for years. Old bark that had previously fallen off is now used as covering for parts of the natural structure. Even if the tree doesn’t make it, it seems this religious monument will live on forever.

Baobab Tree

Madagascar

Photo via flickr by Tasihi.M

Also known as the “Monkey Bread Tree,” the Baobab can grow up to nearly 100 feet (30 m) tall and 35 feet (11 m) wide. Their trunks are actually water storage and can store as much as 31,700 gallon (120,000 l) of water to endure harsh drought conditions. Though Baobab is found in Africa and Australia, they are Madagascar’s national trees. Groups of the most majestic baobab trees can be found on Baobab Avenue, near Morondava, in Madagascar.

Bristlecone Pine: Methuselah

White Mountains of eastern California

Photo via flickr by walking along

Bristlecone Pines, located in Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, and California are the oldest (non-clonal, acknowledged) living trees known to man today, up to at least 5,000 years. Swedish researches recently discovered a self-cloning spruce in Dalarna that has been dated to just under 10,000 years old, but the Bristlecone is still the oldest, non-clonal tree species.Methuselah is the oldest recorded Bristlecone located in the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest in theWhite Mountains of eastern California and is said to be 4,789 years old. This tree was named afterMethuselah, the longest-lived person in the Bible.

Angel Oak

John’s Island, South Carolina

Photo via flickr by gotigersjf

A southern, live oak, the Angel Tree is located on one of South Carolina’s Sea Islands, John’s Island, and thought to be one of the oldest living organisms east of the Mississippi River. The tree derives its name from the Angel estate and local folklore told of stories of ghosts of former slaves that would appear as angels around the tree. Just like the trees haunting past, it is hauntingly beautiful.

The Lone Cypress

Monterey Bay, California

Photo via flickr by Creativity+

This isn’t a particularly large tree, nor is it very old (about 200 years), but the isolated juxtaposition of this lonely tree next to the rocky, cold Pacific Ocean, off the coast of Pebble Beach, Monterey, California, makes for a breathtaking and stunning visual experience. The Lone Cypress is one of many vista points on Monterey, California’s 17 Mile Drive (also on the drive is the famous Ghost Tree), which is a must-see tourist attraction if visiting the breathtaking, Monterey coastline.

Montezuma Cypress (El Tule)

Oaxaca, Mexico

Photo via flickr by hmerinomx

El Tule is an exceptionally large Cypress living in Oaxaca, Mexico. This tree has the largest trunk girth at 190 feet (58 m) and trunk diameter at 37 feet (11.3 m). It is believed that this tree is between 2,000 and 3,000 years old, but was relocated and replanted 1,400 years ago by a priest of the Aztec storm god.

Trees are some of the most diverse specimens on the planet, however they also share manysimilarities. For one, no tree dies of old age. They are generally killed by insects, disease or by people. 90% of their nutrition from the atmosphere and only 10% from the soil, and the death of just one 70-year old tree would return over three tons of carbon to the atmosphere. The trees above represent some of the most interesting and majestic of all living tree species in nature, however it should be mentioned that this list is ever growing and changing. There are thousands of other extraordinary species, perhaps even some that we have not discovered or that have not properly been identified by science, in existence today.