Classification of Plants

By classifying living things an attempt can be made to organise the hundreds of thousands of species into a meaningful scheme based on their life-history.

The highest rank for living organisms is the Kingdom. Today the most widely accepted classification recognises five kingdoms. Two of these are Fungi and Plantae.

Fungi do not contain chlorophyll and cannot photosynthesise. They live as parasites, saprophytes or in symbiosis.

Plants make their own food by photosynthesis using chlorophyll in their leaves and sunlight.

Ferns

These plants have no flowers and reproduce by means of spores which can be found in clusters on the back of leaves.

Conifers

The conifers are an ancient group, with a fossil record extending back about 300 million years.

Flowering Plants

The flowering plants are the majority of plants we see around us. They have seeds enclosed in a true fruit.

Mosses

Mosses and liverworts are small plants which are often overlooked. They are soft plants that are typically 1-10 cm tall, occasionally more.

Algae

Algae lack leaves, roots, flowers, and other organ structures that characterise higher plants. They are usually found in damp places or bodies of water and are common in terrestrial as well as aquatic environments.

Fungi

Although often inconspicuous, fungi occur in every environment on earth and play very important roles in most ecosystems.

Lichens

Lichens are organisms made up by the association of a fungus with a photosynthetic partner which is an algae that can produce food for the lichen from sunlight.