The basics of plants and botany
As a teenager, I spent too much time on skates, and I did not get teacher message why I should spent time for education. For this reason, my knowledge of biology - especially of plants - is so fucking minor. However, sometimes you got fucked, and then you have to kick your ass by yourself. Still, I am a little lazy m***f***r so the result is more or less a text collage of wikipedia articles. Here it goes:
Definition of plants
Plants, focus is on green plants (Viridiplantae in Latin), are living organisms of the kingdom Plantae including such multicellular groups as flowering plants, conifers, ferns and mosses, as well as, depending on definition, the green algae, but not red or brown seaweeds like kelp, nor fungi or bacteria.
Botany - the study of plants
The study of plants is vital because they are a fundamental part of life on Earth, which generates the oxygen and food that allow humans and other life forms to exist. Through photosynthesis, plants absorb carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that in large amounts can affect global climate. Just as importantly for us, plants release oxygen into the atmosphere during photosynthesis. Additionally, they prevent soil erosion and are influential in the water cycle.
Plants are crucial to the future of human society as they provide food, oxygen, medicine, and products for people; as well as creating and preserving soil.
Plants are the fundamental base of nearly all food chains because they use the energy from the sun and nutrients from the soil and atmosphere, converting them into a form that can be consumed and utilized by animals.
The verbs of the text reveals which kind of functions a plant has. Every verb, which is related to a creational process is an indicator for an output channel. Input channels can be figured out by verbs of "use", "need", etc. So the output oxygen and food are our possible material for a feedback or a visualization channel.
Ecology
Herbivores eat plants, but plants can also defend themselves. Some other organisms form beneficial relationships with plants, called mutualisms, for example with mycorrhizal fungi that provide nutrients, and honey bees that pollinate flowers.
Mutualism represents a direct interaction between the organism plant and animal. This concept is crucial to understand, because it might reveals a vital reason why humans really need plants as new tool.
Chemicals from the air, soil, and water in combination with sunlight form the basis of plant metabolism. Most plants must adapt to a variety of environmental factors, including changes in temperature, light and moisture.
Plant metabolism has a strong relationship to Bio Art. Therefore I have to check more stuff about plant metabolism and bio-based artworks. I am especially interested on bio art which is focusing on plants and electronic stuff. Based on the previous artworks I can learn how to use input channels like air, temperature, light and moisture in a design based approach.
Structure
The body of a plant contains three basic parts: roots, stems, and leaves. Roots anchor it to the ground, gather water and mineral nutrients from the soil, and produce hormones. Roots which spread out close to the surface, such as those of willows, can produce shoots and ultimately new plants. Fleshy taproots, such as those of beets and carrots, store carbohydrates. Stems provide support to the leaves and store nutrients. Leaves gather sunlight and begin photosynthesis
Some basic stuff for understandig how plants work. There are two locally independent input channels. The roots for water + mineral nutrients and the leaves for using the sunlight. Both inputes are vital for the plant and of course for the photosynthesis, too.
The next article will deal with some subdiscipline of botany. The selection is based on the subdiscipline list of the wikipedia Botany article.