Plants capture energy, build habitats, and sustain food webs across much of Earth. Learn how different species grow, reproduce, photosynthesize, disperse, and develop structural or physiological adaptations to their surroundings.
A tall tree does not pump water upward with a heart-like organ. Most of the lifting force begins in its leaves, where evaporation creates tension inside microscopic water conduits. This pull can raise water from roots to a canopy more than 100 meters above the ground, but the system approaches...
General Sherman is the largest known living single-stem tree when size is measured by trunk volume. The giant sequoia stands in the Giant Forest of California’s Sequoia National Park and contains an estimated 1,487 cubic meters, or about 52,500 cubic feet, of trunk wood. Its base is so broad that a...
On a slope above Fish Lake in Utah, approximately 47,000 white trunks rise from what appears to be an aspen forest. Genetic evidence shows that the stems belong to one quaking aspen, Populus tremuloides. They are shoots produced by a single clone whose interconnected root system extends across...
Some Great Basin bristlecone pines were already growing when the Great Pyramid of Giza was constructed in the 26th century BCE. In California’s White Mountains, living trees have been dated to more than 4,800 years, and one reported specimen exceeded 5,000 years. These are not colonies repeatedly...