Original photo by benedek/ iStock
When we think of where plants come from, we normally picture seeds: acorns dropping from oak trees or dandelion seeds floating on the breeze. But plants actually existed long before seeds arrived on the scene. Land plants likely emerged from ocean algae about 500 million years ago, but fossil records reveal the earliest seed plants didn’t appear until approximately 365 million to 385 million years ago.
During that vast stretch of time, plants relied on spores for reproduction — tiny, single-celled packages that could scatter and grow into new plants. An early group of plants called progymnosperms began manufacturing two sets of specialized spores, male and female. Those were shed from the plant and, if they landed close together, fertilization could take place, producing a new embryo and ultimately a whole new plant.
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It's a factA single specimen of Posidonia australis seagrass, commonly known as Poseidon’s ribbon weed, covers an area of 77 square miles in Shark Bay, just off Western Australia. Washington, D.C., meanwhile, has a total area of 68.34 square miles.
Eventually, however, evolution came up with seeds as a better solution. With their multiple cells, seeds can be much larger than spores and can sit inside protective shells. Seeds can carry their own stores of food, providing fledgling plants with an immediate source of energy, and they’re also far more adaptable and resilient in various environments, allowing them to lay dormant for hundreds — and in some cases thousands — of years.
Today, there are almost 400,000 known species of plants, and the vast majority of them produce seeds. But spore-producing plants — including mosses, ferns, fungi, and algae — still thrive in suitable habitats, serving as living reminders of how plants conquered the land long before seeds existed.
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The stem or stalk of a mushroom is known as a ______.
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The stem or stalk of a mushroom is known as a stipe.
Bamboo can grow 35 inches in a single day.
Under ideal conditions, the fastest-growing species of bamboo, such as Moso, can shoot upward at a rate of 35 inches in just 24 hours, earning bamboo the Guinness World Record for the fastest-growing plant. Bamboo typically grows in dense forests where little light reaches the ground, so the plant has evolved to reach vital sunlight as quickly as possible.
Unlike trees that slowly add layers of new cells over time, increasing their girth as they go, bamboo is almost totally focused on vertical growth. It maintains a constant diameter, so it doesn’t waste any energy on growth rings. Rather than having a stalk that progressively thickens, bamboo is basically just a single stick that grows straight up.
Bamboo also has a hollow stem, providing structural strength while using fewer resources to achieve the same heights as other types of plants. The plant also produces cells that can enlarge rapidly by taking in water, quickly elongating the nodes within the stem. The overall growth mechanism is less like watching a building being built brick by brick and more like watching a slinky being pulled from both ends.
Tony is an English writer of nonfiction and fiction living on the edge of the Amazon jungle.
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