1. Plants can communicate with each other, using sound and chemicals! In fact, some plants “listen” to their neighbors and respond by changing the direction of their growth in order to better catch the sunlight.
2. Not all plants need soil to grow. Certain plants such as carnivorous plants can grow without soil, instead they take all their nutrients from the air, sun, and insects.
3. If you think plants are only green, think again! There are plants with vibrant colors, including black, bright orange, and even blue.
4. Certain plants can live for hundreds of years. The oldest known living plant is a gnarled shrub from Tasmania, called the Lomatia tasmanica. This plant is estimated to be over 43,000 years old!
5. Plants may not be able to move, but they are able to grow much faster than animals, they just need the right conditions.
6. While some plants require a lot of sun, the world’s deepest known plant species, Halocarpus biformis, is able to survive entirely on the nutrients it gets from the sea.
7. Charles Darwin was an avid plant collector and experimented with plants in his greenhouse. He called it “the most important laboratory of my life”.
8. Some mobile phone companies are using plants as an electricity source! As plants take in energy from the sun, their energy is harvested and used to power buildings and homes.
9. Plants like grass, trees and flowers are important to us in more ways than one. They provide us with the oxygen we need to breathe, the food we eat and the materials with which to build our houses.
10. Plants even help to protect us from the sun! They act like natural sunscreen, because their leaves and bark reflect some of the ultraviolet rays from the sun, thus preventing sunburns.
