Thursday, April 4, 2013

Plants with Animal Behavior

CHAPTER 1-DODDER VINE


The Dodder vine is a plant that is attracted to tomato plants. It smells it and it actually spins , finds the tomato plant and then sticks on to it.  It spoilt the tomato plant. A scientist wanted to try an experiment. So what happened was they put an actual tomato by a dodder vine but covered it up so you couldn't smell and a stick with tomato perfume. The dodder vine spun around and went to the stick with the tomato perfume on it.

It proved that the dodder vine follows the tomato plant by smell.






CHAPTER 2 - KNAPWEED and LUPIN

 The Knapweed comes from Europe and it spoils native grass. It releases a chemical that goes into the soil and stops the native grass from growing. Somebody came and saw the knapweed and he brought cattle. That time there was hardly any native grass so they had to eat the knapweed. Unfortunately they don't like knapweed. So they won't eat it. But sheep like knapweed. Fortunately there is a plant that can protect grass from knapweed. It is called Lupin. It releases a chemical that stops the knapweed chemical.






CHAPTER 3 - SEA ROCKETS

The sea rocket acts more like a human. It has a behavior called kin behavior. If it is near one of its siblings or family it would be kind to its siblings (or family). If one sea rocket was planted next to its siblings it would give more space for the siblings' roots. But if it were planted next to a stranger plant, it would fight for space. Dudley and her student Amanda File proved it by planting some sea rockets next to their siblings and some next to the strangers. When they got ready to transplant them, they found that the ones next to strangers had a lot of roots. The ones next to the siblings had less roots.





CHAPTER 4 - DOUGLAS FIR AND FUNGI

With the Douglas firs, there are mother trees and daughter trees. The roots are all connected by fungi. The fungi gets some sugar from the trees and in return the fungi gives the trees some nutrients. Now about the Douglas Fir. A scientist named Simard and her student pumped radioactive Carbon in a mother tree and when they came back to find where all the Carbon had gone, they found that it went through a lot of other trees especially the baby trees. The baby trees got the most Carbon because the babies needed a lot to grow. So it proves that mother trees actually nurture the young.






CHAPTER 5 - WILD TOBACCO

The wild tobacco needs moths to pollinate them. Unfortunately the moths comes and lays hundreds of eggs there. The caterpillar starts eating the tobacco.The tobacco produces a sugary thingy that caterpillars love and when they eat them they start smelling badly and predators come and eat the caterpillars.

CHAPTER 6 - JOKES

1. WHICH PLANT HAS A MOTHER?
the dodder ("daughter") vine

2. WHICH PLANT IS LAZY?
the knapweed ("nap" weed)

3. WHICH PLANT IS A GREAT GYMNAST?
the lupin ("loop" in)

4. WHY IS THE MUSHROOM POPULAR?
because it is a fungi ("fun guy")

5. WHICH PLANT GOES TO OUTERSPACE?
the sea rocket

6.  WHICH PLANT IS FUZZY?
the douglas fir (the douglas "fur")




3 comments:

  1. Loved your first blog, SK.
    For its interesting facts that piques research interests, and the funny jokes that serve to remind one of the special plants you refer to above in your blogs. Glad to have you let us into the points that have made an impression on you. That makes it all the more interesting. Keep it up please.

    ReplyDelete
  2. thanks i love your compliment

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  3. Another great slog! It makes for a very interesting read indeed.

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