Seed Plants What is the difference between a seed plant and any other plant? What do seeds do? How do plants reproduce if they don’t use seeds?

What is a seed Plant?  A seed plant is a plant that can reproduce by creating seeds  Seeds are a form of sexual reproduction. This means that they combine genes from 2 parents to create on genetically similar offspring  Most seed plants can also reproduce asexually  Asexual reproduction is when there is only one parent which creates a genetically identical offspring.

Parts of a seed plant  Parts of a seed plant include  Stems  Cones  Roots  Leaves  Flowers

What is a seed?  A seed is the part of a plant that is created by combining pollination, for the purpose of sexual reproduction.  The seed contains the plant embryo, and enough stored food to supply the embryo until it is capable of producing it’s own food. How many ways can you think of that plants disperse, or spread their seeds?

The Stem  The plant stem serves a few different functions.  It is the bridge between the roots and the flowers/leaves.  It supports the rest of the plant. Typically the stem is the strongest part of the plant  The stem is also responsible for transporting water and nutrients from the roots to the other parts of the plant where they are needed. Question: What part of a tree would be the stem??????

Roots  Roots are vital for a plants survival. What purposes can you think of that roots serve????  Roots anchor the plant to the ground  They also absorb water and nutrients into the plant Did you Know: That microscopic organisms attached to the roots of plants help them “Fix” Nitrogen. This means that they make the Nitrogen into a different type that the plant can use.

Leaves  Leaves are vital for a plants survival.  Chloroplasts in the leaves transform solar energy and carbon dioxide into starch. Starch is the plants food.  Photosynthesis also creates’ oxygen, which we breathe.  Stoma, on the underside of leaves release water. Do you know why this is? What makes a leave green? Chloroplasts

Flowers  Flowers come in many shapes, sizes, and colors, but they all serve the same purpose. Flowers are how many seed plants reproduce.  Many flowers contain both male and female parts.  Colored flowers often attract certain types of insects, or birds which go from flower to flower and fertilize them.  Do you know how this occurs? Pollen, the male part of the reproduction, is sticky and sticks to bees, and other insects. The insects then carry the pollen to other flowers where some pollen may drop into the stigma, and pollinate the flower.

Cones  A cone is like flowers, they are the reproductive parts of the plant.  There are separate male and female cones. Each tree will have both. The female cones are much larger than the male ones  1 cone contains many seeds. What is a Cone??? Have you ever seen a cone that was opened up? Each one of the openings contained one seed. Did you know that fire is often what causes the cones to open and release the seeds. Squirrels also open the cones to eat the seeds but often help distribute them as well

A little experiment  On a piece of paper write down a prediction as to what will happen if you put a piece of celery into a beaker filled with water and food coloring???  Why do you think this will happen??? Lets try it: We will take a celery stalk with the leaves on one side and place it leaves up into a beaker full of water with food coloring. Tomorrow we will come back and see what happened.