All life depends on plants
Almost every living thing depends on plants for its food supply. Even the leopard and lion, which only eat meat, are actually feeding on plants, because that is what feeds their prey. In the same way, if you drink milk you are really consuming grass, there wold be no cows to give us milk. The grass turns the Sun's energy into food, the cow turns that energy into milk, and you use that energy to kick a football around, or dance or do homework. Even reading uses up some of that energy. The link from grass to cows to humans, or from grass to antelope to lions, is called a food chain.

From seeds to 'sweetcorn'
Germination : The seed absorbs moisture from the soil and starts to grow.
Lightwards : The shoot grows up, while the roots grow down.
Growth : More roots grow below ground, and more leaves above ground.
Flowering : Finally, the maize plant flowers and then sets seed, producing a new cob of corn.

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How do plants drink?
Although plants can absorb a little water through their leaves, they get most of the water they need by drawing it up from the ground through their roots. The roots are in close contact with the particles of soil around them. Tiny rootlets connected to the roots extend into the soil, and these draw in moisture. If you pull up a plant, you can see the delicate white roots, but you cannot see the microscopic rootlets that absorb water. If a plant is pulled up, the rootlets are broken. As soon as they stop working, the plant starts to wilt.

Insect-eating plants
Some plants that grow in poor soil get the nutrients they need by trapping and digesting passing insect. Most produce and attractive scent or glistering drop that look like nectar to lure insect to their doom. Sticky glue or a pool of liquid keeps an insect in the trap while the plant closes and begins to digest it.

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PLANTS LIVE

Look at trees and other plant, and what colour do you see? The answer, almost always, is various shades of green. That green colour is produced by a chemical called chlorophyll, which is found on the leaves of plants. Chlorophyll is the one of the most important substance on Earth, because it absorbs energy from sunlight, and enables plants to grow. Without it, plants could not survive, and animals would have nothing to eat.

How do plants feed?
Unlike animals, plants do not need to find food. Instead, they make food 'out of thin air' with the help of chlorophyll. The chlorophyll in the plant's leaves absorbs energy from sunshine. The plant then uses this energy to combine water with carbon dioxide, making a sugary food substance called glucose. This process is called photosynthesis. Plants use glucose to grow.They also use it to form sweet-tasting fruits, and to make nectar, syrupy liquid that attracts insects to flowers. Any spare sugar is stored in the plant's seeds or roots.
Light is essential for plants, because they cannot make glucose without it. This is why they grow towards the light. If a plant is shut up in a dark place, it turns pale because its chlorophyll breaks down, and eventually it dies.

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The mouse's whiskers
Most fungi release spores into the air. These fly about and, if they settle in the right place, grow into new fungi. One fungus is much more cunning about spreading its spores. It grows on mouse dropping, and produces spores with long, upright threads attached. These stand up in the air and catch on the whiskers of passing mice, where they stick fast and are carried off. Later the mouse washes its face and swallows the spores, which travel right through its stomach and intestines. When the mouse next leaves dropping, the spores are there, ready to start growing.

Fungal giants
One of the largest toadstools ever found was an example for an edible kind called Polyporus frondosus. It weighed 33 kg (72 lb). Fungi on living trees can grow even larger. One in the United States measured 142 cm (56 in) across and weighed at least 140 kg (300 lb).

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Are toadstools poisonous?
Some toadstools are very poisonous. You would only have to touch them and lick your fingers for them to make you ill. People have died from eating just a few of them. In 1534, Pope Clement was killed by the death cap toadstools, the world most poisonous fungus. The are many delicious wild fungi, but you need to be an expert to distinguish them from the poisonous ones.

The death cap grows in woodland in Europe and North America. Some edible fungi look quite like it.

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