Plants Are Different And Alike (1967)

[Music] one day in Spring Karen and her brother Larry went with Dad to a plant nursery to buy some seeds for their Garden so many beautiful plants there were tall plants and short plants there were plants growing in the sunlight and plants growing in shade there were so many kinds of plants lar knew a little about some of them he knew that there are large plants like trees and mediumsized plants like shrubs and bushes and smaller plants like these with colorful flowers Karen knew the name of these plants which they had grown in their Garden last year they are patunas some have white flowers some have dark red but they all have the same shape then Larry noticed something else the petunia has a different shape than this flower on a nearby plant and this one is different from this one on still another plant so different plants have different kinds of flowers differences are often easy to see but plants are alike in certain ways too all the plants growing here no matter what their size or shape are alike in one way they all need food to live and grow the white patches on the log are plants too they are called fungi fungi usually grow in damp Shady places like a forest there are many kinds of fungi they take their food from Dead or decaying matter mushrooms are one kind of fungi we may be familiar with one way all fungi are alike is that they don't have the green coloring matter called chlorophyll all green plants have chlorophyll which they use in making their own food from minerals in the soil and from water air and sunlight chlorophyll gives most stem and leaves of plants their familiar green color Larry wanted to know how green plants get the minerals and other materials they need to make their food let's see how a plant like this tree gets some of the materials it needs to make food if we take the covering off we'd see the soil in which the tree is growing and if we could look into this soil we'd see the roots of the tree minerals and water from the soil move into the roots and then up into the stem of the tree the trunk of a tree is its stem through the stems of green plants minerals and water pass into their leaves leaves are another way in which most green plants are alike in the leaves is most the chlorophyll which green plants use to make food so most green plants are alike in three ways they have leaves stems and Roots but if green plants have leaves stems and Roots why don't they all look alike mainly because over many thousands of years green plants have developed in different ways let's see some of these differences we'll look at some different kinds of roots first Roots we know help green plants take in minerals and water the roots of trees usually grow deep down in the soil and help keep these large plants from toppling over the roots of some green plants however don't grow as deep let's look at this grass that's just been dug up many of the grasses we use for our Lawns have shallow roots they spread out just below the top of the ground these roots often cross and crisscross each other like a mat they help hold the soil together and keep it from being washed or Blown Away many garden flowers have a main root that grows down into the soil if we visited a farm at Harvest Time we'd see that many vegetable plants have main roots too vegetables like carrots radishes and turnips have main Roots which store much of the food the plants make we use such roots for our own food now what about different kinds of stems of green plants Vines are sometimes called climbing plants because as they grow their long stems cling to a wall or other support the large vine on this house has stems that twine around supports to hold the plant up some Vines like the morning glory with its flowers twine around larger more sturdy plants the thin stems of the morning glory grow tightly around the larger stronger plant most of the larger green plants like shr UBS and bushes have stems that are stiff and Woody and of course trees too have hard Woody stems like this many smaller green plants have softer stems some green plants have unusual stems that grow underground many of our garden flowers like Lilies tulips and gladiolas grow from underground stems roots and leaves grow from an underground stem and what about some of our vegetable plants that part of the onion plant we eat is an underground stem these potatoes are underground stems too now that we've seen different kinds of stems and Roots let's look at leaves these water lies have leaves that float on water what else can we notice about them they are green like all green leaves that make food on the underside we can see the veins that carry the food materials of the leaf what other plants have broad flat leaves some of the green plants we eat like lettuce have large broad leaves many kinds of trees have flat broad leaves such leaves are very common among trees that lose their leaves in the Autumn these leaves make enough food during the Spring and Summer to keep the trees alive during the winter after the leaves fall but some trees are different in that they have leaves that stay on the tree all year trees with such leaves are called Evergreens the spruce tree is an evergreen and here are its leaves they are long thin and pointed these are found on many evergreen trees but the children didn't come to buy trees today they came to buy seeds all seeds like the ones they're going to plant in their Garden are the beginnings of new plants here are some of the different kinds of flowers and vegetables they want to grow are the seeds different let's see the seeds have different sizes and shapes these are petunia seeds and these are seeds of the Zenia here are carrot seeds and here are watermelon seeds seeds may be of different sizes and shapes but all are alike in that they are the beginnings of new plants Larry and Karen help select the seeds they'd like to grow in their Garden this year they know that the green plants which grow from seeds will be alike in some ways and different in some ways how many ways can you think of that plants are different and alike [Music] [Applause] [Music]