Biodiversity refers to the variety of plants and other living things. There are hundreds of thousands of vascular plant species identified on Earth. Recall that vascular plants have a tube system for
transporting water and nutrients.
All plants have several characteristics in common. Do you know what these characteristics are? See if you can list them, then click the Show Me button to check your answer.
They all share the ability to produce their own food through photosynthesis, they reproduce sexually through pollination, and they produce seeds.
Although plants share some common characteristics, each species has its own unique combination of features that differentiate it from other plant species. Read each tab below to discover some of the characteristics that can vary in different species of plants.
Seed Size
Seed Shape
Leaf Shape
Stem Type
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| Mustard Seeds | A Peach Seed |
Seeds range in size from very small, like the mustard seeds, to very large, like peach seeds. Seeds can measure just fractions of a centimeter all the way up to over 30 centimeters.
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Seeds can have a shape that is round or oval, short and fat, long and skinny, or somewhere in between. The corn seed shown in the image has a shape that doesn't really go in any of these categories! As you can imagine, there are innumerable shapes to consider.
Leaf Shapes |
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As you can see from the image, there are just as many leaf shapes as there are seed shapes. When looking at leaf shape, you can study symmetry, lobes, arrangement, and stems.
The pattern of the vascular tissue (xylem and phloem) inside the stem of a plant can vary, depending on the type of plant.
Monocot Stem.
Dicot Stem.
A cross-section view of the stem of a monocot shows a somewhat even distribution of vascular bundles. Notice how the vascular bundles of the dicot stem cross-section are arranged in a circular pattern.
Question
How might you organize your notebook if you were classifying various plant species?
