Plants produce oxygen, remove carbon dioxide from the air, form the base of the food web, provides habitat for other plants and animals, help purify water, roots keep soil in place, and used by people for both food and

 Fruits, vegetables most common food  75% of world’s food is based on 7 major crops: wheat, rice, corn, potatoes, barley cassava, sorghum

 Chocolates come from the cocoa tree originally grown in Central and South America.  Natives used to chew the leaves and beans to get stimulated and energized before battles and rituals. They have some in it.  Spanish explorers in the 1500s brought back the pods with the beans inside. The beans are roasted and crushed into a powder and other ingredients were added to make chocolate.

Cotton  The most important non-edible plant in the world  The fibres come from the white fluffy seed. The fibres that make up the cottonball is spun into cloth. Trees  Made into furniture, buildings, paper products Flax  Is used as a food product and fibre too. The seeds are eaten, baked, and made into oils and health products  The fibres are stronger than cotton so it was used to make cloth, paper.  The flax linseed oils are used in making inks, paints

flax cotton

Hemp  The oldest cultivated crop for fibre in the world  Used to make cloth for clothes, sails, ropes, paper  - went to California gold rush in 1869 to set up a goods store. Made hemp sails into jeans because they were tougher and not rip easily  Hemp produces 4 times more fibre than trees, it can be harvested within a year, hemp paper can be recycled several times more then wood paper, very few predators  Related to the plant, but it lacks the chemical THC that makes cannabis (aka marijuana)

 Also called the Indian hemp, originating in the mountains of India.  Contains, a chemical that numbs the senses, alters mental state and gives people a “high”. Also very addictive.  A product from the plant called was smoked in by special Saracen soldiers in the Middle Ages called hashashins which gave them a high and altered their mental states before being sent to assassinate enemies. That’s where the word assassin came from.  - first called this by Poncho Villa, a Mexican revolutionary in the 1800s. It is basically the leaves of the plant that can be smoked in or injected if in a powder form.  Very controversial in many countries. Some ban it, others only make it legal for medical reasons (like in Canada).  Proven to help relieve pain, nausea, inflammation, and many symptoms but addictive, thus it is illegal in many places.

Herbal Remedies  Used in every country for thousands of years.  Some are strange, based on superstition and not scientific or proven medically  You can find it in any health food store and pharmacy  For centuries, people used the bark to produce a tea that can kill pain.  Scientists later extract it and made it into a pill. Called  Made now in labs.

- powerful pain killer made from the fluid of the opium poppy pod. Used to treat pain in soldiers and hospitals. Numbs the nervous system, makes the person drowsy and sleepy. Very addictive, so it is very tightly controlled by law. Named after, Greek god of sleep and dreams is another highly addictive drug used in Asia. Alters mental state, kills pain, cause sleepiness is a highly refined form of opium. Illegal and highly addictive. used in cough syrup. Numbs pain and makes user drowsy. Most now no longer have codeine in it. Major crop in Afghanistan where it is controversial

 Grows in South America’s Andes mountains  Drug called helps prevent malaria, a mosquito-carried viral illness that kills 2 million people worldwide every year in the tropics.  Now made synthetically. Now useless in some areas due to by the disease.

 - treats colds and flu  – succulent plant to treat skin conditions  – headaches, fevers  – increases oxygen to the brain to increase mental abilities one of the oldest trees alive

Transportation  Rubber from tree to make tires  from fossilized plants millions of years ago is refined into gasoline, diesel and jet fuel. Also made into machine oils.  Canoes, kayaks, sleds, wagons all made from bark and parts of trees.  Sugars from plants made into types of alcohols that gives of energy when burned. Often found mixed in some gasoline.