Strange and Surprising Plants
Strange and Surprising Plants
If you think that all plants are green, have leaves, and grow in the ground, you’re in for a surprise.
Some plants are white, orange, or even purple, instead of green.
Some plants grow on bread, cheese, rocks, or even in trees, instead of in the ground.
Some plants look like animals, or even like rocks!
There are a great many kinds of the wonderful living things we call plants. And some of them are really strange and surprising!
Plants that grow on bread and cheese
> Some molds make the cheese they grow in taste better. When a piece of bread gets old, it may become covered with pale, powdery spots. Each spot is a sort of “forest” of tiny, tiny plants called…
The baker’s plant
> yeast plants > > Yeast plants are growing in the dough this baker is mixing. The small > photo shows how growing yeast cells look under a microscope. If it weren’t for a plant called yeast, we…
Plants that can swim!
Chlamydomonas Chlamydomonas is a tiny plant that swims like an animal! > Sometimes, 16 of these tiny plants form a jellylike wheel and live in > it together. If you peeked at a drop of pond…
Plants that trap insects
In many wet and swampy places there are plants that trap insects! But plants don’t “eat.” If plants don’t “eat,” then why do they catch insects? All plants need a salt called a nitrate. It helps…
