SCIENCE

NAME: MARYLEI PRIMACIO DATE: JULY 10, 2019

GRADE AND SECTION: 9 ACTINIUM TEACHER: MRS OBEJERO

The Basic Structures of a Living Plant

Plants have a root system, a stem or trunk, branches, leaves, and reproductive structures
(sometimes flowers, sometimes cones or spores, and so on). Most plants are vascular, which
means they have a system of tubules inside them that carry nutrients around the plant.

Vascular plants are differentiated from plants such as algae, which do not have a vascular
system. Most vascular plants are seed plants, and seed plants are most often the model used
in biology and botany textbooks and the type of plant with which you’re probably the most
familiar.

Plant tissues

There are two main types of seed plants: gymnosperms (conifers, which produce pinecones)
and angiosperms (flowering plants). Of the 500,000 different species of plants, more than
300,000 are flowering plants.

Flowering plants are divided by how many cotyledons they have. Cotyledons are the tissues
that provide nourishment to a developing seedling. Flowering plants can be monocotyledons,
which means they have one cotyledon, or dicotyledons, which means they have two
cotyledons.

Three types of plant tissues exist:

Vascular tissue, which consists of xylem (pronounced “zi-lem”) and phloem (pronounced “flow-
em”) — the main tubes through which nutrients are transported

Dermal tissue, which includes the outer cells (epidermis), guards cells surrounding a stoma,
and special cells found on the outer surface of plants, such as hair cells or cells that cause a
stinging sensation

Ground tissue, which consists of three types of cells:

Parenchyma cells are the most common ground cells. They are involved in many basic cell
functions including storage, photosynthesis, and secretion.

Collenchyma cells have thick cell walls and are involved in mechanical support.

Sclerenchyma cells are similar to collenchyma cells, but their walls are even thicker.

Plant cells

Plant cells differ from animal cells in that they have a cell wall. Animal cells have a cell
membrane as the outer membrane of a cell; plant cells also have a cell membrane, but they
have the additional, more rigid cell wall surrounding it. Here is a list of what you’d find in a
typical animal cell. Then, compare it to what you’d find in a typical plant cell.