Question

How many kinds of plants are there?

Answer 1

Hint: There are several ways in which plants can be classified. According to their habitat like marine, freshwater, desert, tropical, temperate; according to whether they are seed bearing and flowering or not, like gymnosperms and angiosperms; whether they are monocots or dicots; and according to growth habits.

Complete Answer:
- Growth habits divide plants according to the kind of stems they have and the heights they can grow to. According to growth habits, we can divide them into two groups based on whether or not they need support, and then further subdivide them.
- Plants that don’t need support are divided into three groups: herbs, shrubs, and trees. Herbs are short plants with a delicate green stem. They are generally branchless, lacking any woody structures, and are high in nutritive value. Banana, cabbage, tomato, wheat, radish are all good examples of herbs.
- Shrubs are bigger herbs, with woody stems, and well branched. They don’t grow very tall, generally 6 to 10 metre high, and their stems though woody are still quite flexible. Shrubs are not that easy to uproot. They have a longer lifespan than herbs. A few common shrubs include bougainvillea, pomegranate, jasmine, and rose.
- Trees are the tallest growing of all. Trees are characterised with a very strong woody trunk which is their main stem. From this many woody branches grow which are strong enough to support different kinds of fruit and the weight of large arboreal animals like leopards and gorillas. Trees can live for centuries under the right conditions. Mango, jackfruit, peepul, and silver oak are all trees.

Note: The plants that need support are climbers and creepers. Climbers have thin, weak stems, but special adaptations which allow them to use other support and grow upwards. They include grapes and money plants. Creepers on the other hand, cannot grow upwards even with support and are always found along the ground. Good examples are pumpkin and watermelon.