Author Topic: The Longest Plants - Giants of the plant world (Read 1348 times)

hazel · « **on:** May 01, 2008, 07:56:44 PM »

The height growth of the plants is a very strenuous process. While reaching to the sky, the plants waste a lot of energy as they must fight the gravitational force. That's why the tree world giant, endowed with the right "pumps", can grow to a maximum height of 130 m (430 ft).

World's tallest trees are the coast redwood trees (Sequoia sempervirens). An individual measured in 2006 in Redwood National Park (Northern California) was 379.1 ft (126.4 m) tall. Some eucalyptuses are close behind but they also have a very rapid growth rate. A Eucalyptus regnant was 346 feet (115 m) tall.

But when the plants get supports, they can grow more than the height reached by Sequoia or Eucalyptus. The support is generally provided by an environment that could take off a bit of the plantâ€™s weight. These environments are the ocean and the jungle. In the water a heavy body is helped by the laws of floating (that's why the largest animals ever are the whales).

The longest inferior plant is found in the ocean: the giant kelp (Macrocystis pyrifera) starts its life from a microscopic spore and grows to lengths of 60 m (200 ft), forming submarine forests. To keep its body floating, this brown alga has air sacs (floaters) resembling pears (hence the name pyrifera "pear bearing") and to resist the waves, the thallus (body) of the alga is divided in numerous "ribbons".

On the ground, extreme lengths are reached by plants from the tropical forests in their fight for light. Theoretically, only the large trees would have enough light, while smaller ones would be doomed. The solution found by many species was turning into vines. A vine can have a rapid growth rate, can crawl tens of meters on other trunks and on the ground until it finds light and then produces a tuft of leaves and flowers. Then, the vine continues to crawl for some other tens of meters until it encounters another light spot. The stems of the rattan palms (which behave like climbing plants) follow this pattern. The species of Daemonorops can reach lengths of up to 200 m (660 ft), as much as half the length of a stadium.

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Lorenzo · « **Reply #1 on:** May 26, 2008, 02:39:40 AM »

These botanical masters have mastered their niches through the eons. These photoautotrophs are absolutely beautiful. They grow this long in order to reach the surface to receive the sun's light. Photosynthetic process.

Over the eons these plants grew, and when the sun recedes, they will lower themselves via Nitrogen-Carbon-Phosphorus interaction. Also this is an evolutionary habituation in order to protect them from predator animals. Namely sea otters. And large schools of fish.

Beautiful.

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Author Topic: The Longest Plants - Giants of the plant world (Read 1348 times)

hazel

The Longest Plants - Giants of the plant world

Lorenzo

Re: The Longest Plants - Giants of the plant world