Welcome to the MedLibrary.org Wikipedia Supplement on Portal:Plants -- Please Click to Return to Front Page

  

Plants

Plants are a major group of life forms and include familiar organisms such as trees, herbs, bushes, grasses, vines, ferns, mosses, and green algae. About 350,000 species of plants, defined as seed plants, bryophytes, ferns and fern allies, are estimated to exist currently. As of 2004, some 287,655 species had been identified, of which 258,650 are flowering and 15,000 bryophytes. Green plants, sometimes called metaphytes, obtain most of their energy from sunlight via a process called photosynthesis.

Aristotle divided all living things between plants (which generally do not move), and animals (which often are mobile to catch their food). In Linnaeus' system, these became the Kingdoms Vegetabilia (later Metaphyta or Plantae) and Animalia (also called Metazoa). Since then, it has become clear that the Plantae as originally defined included several unrelated groups, and the fungi and several groups of algae were removed to new kingdoms. However, these are still often considered plants in many contexts, both technical and popular. Indeed, an attempt to perfectly match "plant" with a single taxon is problematic, because for most people the term plant is only vaguely related to the phylogenic concepts on which modern taxonomy and systematics are based.

  

Selected article

Saffron is a spice derived from the flower of the saffron crocus (Crocus sativus), a species of crocus in the family Iridaceae. The flower has three stigmas, which are the distal ends of the plant's carpels. Together with its style, the stalk connecting the stigmas to the rest of the plant, these components are often dried and used in cooking as a seasoning and colouring agent. Saffron, which has for decades been the world's most expensive spice by weight, is native to Southwest Asia. Saffron is characterised by a bitter taste and an iodoform- or hay-like fragrance; these are caused by the chemicals picrocrocin and safranal. It also contains a carotenoid dye, crocin, that gives food a rich golden-yellow hue. These traits make saffron a much-sought ingredient in many foods worldwide. Saffron also has medicinal applications. The domesticated saffron crocus C. sativus is an autumn-flowering perennial plant unknown in the wild, and is a sterile triploid mutant of the eastern Mediterranean autumn-flowering Crocus cartwrightianus. According to botanical research, C. cartwrightianus originated in Crete, not—as was once generally believed—in Central Asia. The saffron crocus resulted when C. cartwrightianus was subjected to extensive artificial selection by growers who desired elongated stigmas. Being sterile, the saffron crocus's purple flowers fail to produce viable seeds—thus, reproduction is dependent on human assistance: the corms (underground bulb-like starch-storing organs) must be manually dug up, broken apart, and replanted. A corm survives for only one season, reproducing via division into up to ten "cormlets" that eventually give rise to new plants. The corms are small brown globules up to 4.5 centimetres (1.8 in) in diameter and are shrouded in a dense mat of parallel fibers.

...Archive/Nominations

Read more...

  

Selected picture

Credit: Markus Bernet

Dandelion (Taraxacum) is a large genus of flowering plants in the family Asteraceae. They are tap-rooted biennial or perennial herbaceous plants, native to temperate areas of the Northern Hemisphere and also temperate southern South America. The genus is taxonomically very complex, with numerous apomictic microspecies, and polyploidy is also common; over 250 species have been recorded in the British Isles alone. Some botanists take a much broader viewpoint, and only accept a total of about 60 species.

...Archive/Nominations

Read more...

  

Categories

Plants • Lists of plants • Plant families • Green algae • Bryophytes • Lycopodiophyta • Pteridophyta • Angiosperms • Gymnosperms • Invasive plant species • Plant pathogens and diseases

---

Aquatic plants • Carnivorous plants • Domesticated plants • Edible plants • Epiphytes • Extinct plants • Garden plants • Halophytes and salt tolerant plants • Medicinal plants • Non-vascular plants • Parasitic plants • Poisonous plants • Shrubs • Trees

  

Related topics

  

Did you know...

• ...that the Australian Myrtaceae Kunzea ambigua (White Kunzea, pictured) is used in windbreaks and dune stabilization as well as natural landscaping gardens?
• ...that the four volumes of Henry Frederick Conrad Sander's magnum opus were dedicated to the respective queens or empresses of England, the Germany and Prussia, the Russia, and the Belgians?
• ...that mosses of the genus Polytrichum (haircap moss) have adapted to trap moist air between rows of lamellae?
• ...that 19th-century orchid-lover John Day painted over 3,000 illustrations of these flowers?
• ...that the range of the Californian threatened Ferocactus viridescens (San Diego barrel cactus) is mostly located within San Diego County?
• ... that Douglas Barton Osborne Savile showed that the coevolution of rust fungi and their host plants could be used as an aid to plant taxonomy and vice-versa?

• ... that the orchid Masdevallia veitchiana, which can be found around Machu Picchu, was named after the founder of the Chelsea Flower Show, Sir Harry Veitch?
• ... that Victorian plant collector Charles Maries introduced over 500 species of plants to England, including Viburnum plicatum "Mariesii" which was named after him?

• ... that the insectivorous plant Heliamphora nutans was re-discovered in British Guiana in 1881 and successfully introduced to England by David Burke?
• ... that plant collector Charles Curtis, who first introduced the Nepenthes northiana (pictured) variety of pitcher plant to England, went on to become the first superintendent of the Penang Botanic Gardens?
• ... that Begonia boliviensis, one of the species used in the production of the first hybrid tuberous begonia raised in England, was introduced from Bolivia by the Victorian plant collector Richard Pearce?
• ... that the epiphytic orchid Miltoniopsis vexillaria was discovered in 1867 by plant collector David Bowman and introduced from Colombia to England in 1873 by a fellow Veitch employee, Henry Chesterton?
• ... that the orchid Odontoglossum crispum, first discovered in the Andes Mountains in 1841, was highly sought after in Victorian England, when varieties sold at auction for more than 150 guineas?

  

Tasks you can do

Here are some tasks you can do:

1. Describe all families, genera and species of the kingdom Plantae.
2. For species, describe botanical properties, distribution, multiplication, usage (medicine, food, etc.), botanical history, cultivation information.
3. Develop and implement a robust method of naming plant article for the ease of navigation and searching for Wikipedia users.
4. Maintain Category:Plants and its subcategories.

---

• Plant articles needing attention
• Plant articles needing expert attention
• Plant articles needing a taxobox
• Unidentified plant images - Unidentified plants on Commons
• Missing encyclopedic articles about Botany.
• Missing encyclopedic articles in Hotlist of Plants
• Requested articles about plants (botany)
• New article announcements — bot-assisted

  

WikiProjects

• WikiProject Science.
  • WikiProject Biology
    • WikiProject Tree of Life
      • WikiProject Plants
        • WikiProject Banksia
        • WikiProject Carnivorous plants
        • WikiProject Horticulture and Gardening
        • WikiProject Plant Evo Devo

  

Related portals

Science	Biology	Animals

Agropedia  • Arthropods • Amphibians and Reptiles • Biotechnology • Birds • Cats • Cetaceans • Dinosaurs • Dogs • Dentistry • Extinction • Evolutionary biology • Fish • Marine life • Medicine • Metabolism • Mind and Brain • Molecular and Cellular Biology • Neuroscience • Sharks

  

Associated Wikimedia

Plants on Wikinews	Plants on Wikiquote	Plants on Wikibooks	Plants on Wikisource	Plants on Wiktionary	Plants on Wikimedia Commons
News	Quotations	Manuals & Texts	Texts	Definitions	Images & Media