What Is a Plant?

Short, illustrated books about plants, soil, food and farming for children from Class 1 to Class 10, anywhere in the world. Laisha Review will bring you one new manual in every issue. This month: What Is a Plant?, a first book about the green living things that feed the world, made to be read aloud by a grown-up, or read by a strong early reader.

Hello, plant explorer!

Look out of a window. What can you see?

Somewhere, there is a plant. There might be grass. There might be a tree. There might be a tiny green bit of moss growing in a crack in a wall.

Plants are everywhere on our planet. They grow in hot deserts and on cold mountains, in rivers and rainforests, in city gardens and on farm fields. They even grow on rooftops!

A plant is a living thing, just like you, a cat or a bird. Living things grow. They need water and food. They can make new living things like themselves. Plants do all of these things.

Meet the parts

Most plants have the same main parts. Each part has its own job, like the players in a team.

• Roots grow down into the soil. They hold the plant tight, and they drink water with tiny bits of goodness called nutrients.
• The stem holds the plant up. It is like a drinking straw: water travels up tiny tubes inside it.
• Leaves are the kitchens of the plant, where it makes its food.
• Flowers help the plant make seeds. They become fruits, and inside the fruits are seeds.

Five things a plant needs

Most plants need light, water, air, nutrients from the soil, and space to grow. A plant kept in a dark cupboard turns pale and weak. Too little water and it droops; too much can harm the roots.

Food from sunlight

A plant does not eat its dinner from a plate. The leaves catch sunlight, the roots take in water, and tiny holes in the leaves take in a gas called carbon dioxide. With the sun's energy, the leaf turns them into a kind of sugar: the plant's food. This is called photosynthesis (foto-SIN-the-sis). As it works, the leaf gives out oxygen, which we breathe.

A plant makes its own food, inside its leaves!

From seed to plant

A seed is like a tiny packed lunch box with a baby plant inside. With water, air and the right warmth, it wakes up. A root grows down, a shoot pushes up, and the first leaves open. The seedling grows, flowers, and makes new seeds. Round and round, like a wheel: that is a life cycle.

Seeds go travelling

If all the seeds dropped under their parent plant, they would be squashed together, with no space and not enough light. So seeds go travelling! Dandelion seeds have fluffy parachutes that ride the wind. A coconut can float on the sea for weeks and grow on a new beach. Burrs have tiny hooks that stick to animal fur, or to your socks. And birds eat tasty fruits and drop the seeds far away.

Which part are you eating?

A carrot is a root. A potato is a special stem that grows under the ground. Lettuce, spinach and cabbage are leaves. Broccoli is lots of tiny flower buds packed together. Apples, mangoes and tomatoes are fruits. Peas, beans, rice and maize are seeds.

Plants look after us, and our planet

Plants give us wood for houses, chairs and pencils, cotton for T-shirts, and many medicines. Their roots hold the soil so rain and wind cannot carry it away. Trees give shade, and plants take in carbon dioxide and give out oxygen. That is why people all over the world plant trees and look after forests. You can help too!