OVER 50 Amazing Plant Facts!

Plants are really important for the planet and for all living things. Plants absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen from their leaves, which humans and other animals need to breathe. Living things large to small need plants because they eat them and live in them.

Amazing Plant Facts!

80 PERCENT OF THE EARTH’S ORIGINAL FORESTS HAVE BEEN CLEARED OR DESTROYED.
The same forests that dominated the land 8,000 years ago are all but gone. Approximately four-fifths of the forests are gone thanks to human intervention,

NUTRITION DOESN’T FACTOR INTO THE CROPS WE DO MASS PRODUCE.
The world’s largest farmers have pursued certain crops because they can grow a lot of them more quickly, easily and inexpensively to turn a better profit.

As a result, most of the most healthful plants stay off of our dinner plates because they aren’t available at grocery stores.

THE EARTH HAS MORE THAN 80,000 SPECIES OF EDIBLE PLANTS.
If you’re ever in the mood to try something new, the good news is that there is certainly food you haven’t tasted yet growing somewhere in the world.

90 PERCENT OF THE FOODS HUMANS EAT COME FROM JUST 30 PLANTS.
Out of tens of thousands of plants, we could eat, mankind chooses to consume only about 30.

It’s crazy to contemplate how limited our diets are compared to all of the different foods we could be eating.

70,000 PLANT SPECIES ARE UTILIZED FOR MEDICINE.
As it turns out, humans are more diversified in the plants we use for medicine. Although a large portion of that figure applies to traditional medicine, modern medicine is not exempt from plant help.

ONLY 1 PERCENT OF RAINFOREST PLANTS HAVE BEEN STUDIED FOR MEDICINAL POTENTIAL
Given how valuable plants can be medicinal, the rainforest houses a host of possible cures for ailments new and old. This untapped resource could still hold the key to medical breakthroughs.

JUST 10 PERCENT OF THE WORLD’S PLANT-RICH AREAS ARE PROTECTED.
Of the most biodiverse areas on the planet, only 10 percent are officially “protected” to ensure the survival of a multitude of species,

MORE THAN HALF OF PLANT SPECIES ARE NATIVE TO JUST ONE COUNTRY
Chances are, a plant you find in one part of the world is not currently growing anywhere else. As plant habitat is ruined, there’s little point in hoping that the killed plants could be found and harvested somewhere else in the future.

50 MORE FASCINATING PLANT FACTS…

68 PERCENT OF PLANTS ARE IN DANGER OF GOING EXTINCT
While scientists have only examined a fraction of the existing known plant species, of those that have been studied, 68 percent face extinction in the not too distant future.

Since plants can’t just up and move as their habitat is being destroyed, they are even more vulnerable than endangered animals.

PLANT SPECIES ARE GOING EXTINCT — ABOUT 5,000X FASTER THAN THEY SHOULD.
Some will argue that species would go extinct even without human interference. While that’s certainly true, it’s the rate that plants are dying off that raises alarm.

Thanks to climate change, deforestation and other human-influence factors, experts believe that species are going extinct somewhere between 1,000 and 10,000 times faster than they would naturally.

• Ginkgo (Ginkgo biloba) is one of the oldest living tree species, it dates back to about 250 million years ago!
• The word pineapple comes from European explorers who thought the fruit combined the look of a pinecone with flesh like that of an apple!
• The Elephant grass found in Africa is named so as it is 4.5 meters high and even elephants can hide in it!
• Eating lots of onions will make you sleepy, as it acts as a sedative!
• Cucumber is a fruit and not a vegetable since it has seeds in the center!

• A cluster of bananas is called a hand and consists of 10 to 20 bananas known as fingers!
• Vanilla flavoring comes from the pod of an orchid, Vanilla planifolia!
• The first certified botanical garden was founded by Pople Nicholas III in the Vatican City in 1278 AD!
• There are over 300,000 identified plant species and the list is growing all the time!
• Oak trees are struck by lightning more than any other tree!
• Carrots were originally purple in color

• During the 1600s, tulips were so valuable in Holland that their bulbs were worth more than gold. The craze was called tulip mania and caused the crash of the Dutch economy.
• The baobab tree found in Africa can store 1,000 to 120,000 liters of water in its swollen trunk!
• Oak trees don’t produce acorns until they are 50 years old!
• Caffeine serves the function of a pesticide in a coffee plant!
• At over 2000 kilometers long, The Great Barrier Reef is the largest living structure on Earth!

• The first product to have a bar code was Wrigley’s gum!
• The evaporation ‘from a large oak or beech tree is from ten to twenty-five gallons in twenty-four hours!
• Strawberry is the only fruit that bears its seeds on the outside. The average strawberry has 200 seeds!
• Leaving the skin on potatoes while cooking is healthier as all the vitamins are in the skin!
• Around 2000 different types of plants are used by humans to make food!

• Small pockets of air inside cranberries cause them to bounce and float in water!
• Bamboo is the fastest-growing woody plant in the world; it can grow 35 inches in a single day!
• A sunflower looks like one large flower, but each head is composed of hundreds of tiny flowers called florets, which ripen to become the seeds!
• Cabbage has 91% water content!
• Banana is an Arabic word for fingers!

• The California redwood (coast redwood and giant sequoia) are the tallest and largest living organism in the world!
• An average size tree can provide enough wood to make 170,100 pencils!
• The first type of aspirin, painkiller, and fever reducer came from the tree bark of a willow tree!
• 85% of plant life is found in the ocean!
• Bananas contain a natural chemical that can make people feel happy!
• Brazil is named after a tree!
• The Amazon rainforest produces half the world’s oxygen supply!

• Cricket bats are made of a tree called Willow and baseball bats are made out of the wood of Hickory tree!
• Dendrochronology is the science of calculating a tree’s age by its rings!
• Caffeine serves the function of a pesticide in a coffee plant!
• Apple is 25% air, that is why it floats on water!

• Peaches, Pears, apricots, quinces, strawberries, and apples are members of the rose family!
• Apple, potatoes, and onions have the same taste, to test this eat them with your nose closed!
• The tears during cutting an onion are caused by sulfuric acid in them!
• The tallest tree ever was an Australian eucalyptus. In 1872 it was measured at 435 feet tall!
• The first potatoes were cultivated in Peru about 7,000 years ago!
• Lots of plants are used as dyes. You can color cloth with stewed onion skin, tea bags or walnut juice. One of the oldest blue dyes comes from a plant called ‘woad’ that has been used since Neolithic times, more than 6,000 years ago.

• Stress relief can be achieved with chemicals in freshly-cut grass, according to scientists.
• In 2009 discovered a plant in the Philippines that is capable of devouring rats.
• Dandelion is completely edible, from the petals to the roots.
• Trees are the longest-living organisms on earth.
• A herb is specifically from the leaf of a plant, and spice is from the seed, berry, stem, bark, root, or bulb.
• The Poison Garden at England’s Alnwick Garden is filled with plants that can kill.
• The smell of freshly-cut grass is actually a plant distress call.

• Plants can recognize their siblings and give them preferential treatment, competing less for valuable resources like root space than when surrounded by plants that are strangers.
• Plants dislike human noise.
• All teas (black, green, and white) come from the same plant, camellia sinensis. The only thing that differs is the processing methods.
• There is a plant in Australia known as the “Suicide Plant” because the effect of its sting can last for years, and its pain is so unbearable that people have killed themselves after touching it.
• Plants may be deaf, but they can feel, see, smell, and remember, according to plant biologist Daniel Chamovitz.
• 3.34m is the height of the world’s tallest recorded basil plant.

More Really Cool Facts!!!

The average tree is made up of 99% dead cells. The only living parts are the leaves, root tips, and phloem, which is a thin layer of underbark that acts as a food delivery system.

A Bonsai Orange Tree will actually produce tiny oranges.

“Fruit” is a botanical term and “vegetable” is a culinary term, so certain vegetation such as tomatoes, green beans, eggplants, and cucumbers could be called either fruits or vegetables.

A herb is specifically from the leaf of a plant, and spice is from the seed, berry, stem, bark, root or bulb.

One-third of the plant life on the island of Socotra near Yemen can’t be found anywhere else on Earth. It has been described as “most alien-looking place on Earth”.

Scientists were able to revive a flowering plant from the fossilized fruit found in the stomach of an Arctic ground squirrel who was trapped in ice around 32,000 years ago.

Marijuana and hops are from the same plant family: Cannabaceae. But broccoli, broccolini, and broccoli rabe are not.

In fact, cabbage, kale, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, Chinese cabbage, and savoy are all the same species of plant but are so selectively bred that they no longer resemble one another.

Mustard and wasabi aren’t spicy until they are crushed. When the plant’s cells are damaged, two otherwise harmless components mix and produce allyl isothiocyanate, the compound responsible for the familiar pungent taste.

Native Americans planted corn, beans, and squash together because corn provides a structure for the beans to climb, beans provide the nitrogen to the soil that the other plants utilize, and the squash spreads along the ground preventing weeds.

When some plants are being eaten by caterpillars, they send chemical signals to parasitic wasps who swarm and attack the caterpillars.

Johnny Appleseed didn’t plant his trees to feed people. The small, tart apples his orchards produced were mostly used for making booze, like hard cider and Applejack.

The entire dandelion plant is edible. Its leaves provide your recommended daily intake of Vitamin K, its flowers can be used to make wine, its root can be used to make a brewed drink that tastes a bit like coffee, and its also used in several soft drinks.

Figs are not always considered vegan. When pollinated by a fig-wasp, the fig’s inward facing flowers trap the wasp, and the corpse is digested by enzymes in the fig.

The heaviest tree in the world is also the heaviest single organism. It’s an entire forest in Utah, made up of one single tree, called a Quaking Aspen. It weighs 6,000,000 Kg.

The locations of the oldest tree in the world, Methuselah, and the tallest tree in the world, Hyperion, are closely guarded secrets. Only a handful of scientists know the exact locations of the trees. Could be because in 2012, the fifth oldest tree in the world, The Senator, was burned down by a meth addict. Or because in 1973, the world’s most isolated tree, Arbre du Ténéré, was hit and destroyed by a drunk driver, despite being 250 miles from any other living tree.

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