Land plants evolved around 460 million years ago. These primitive land plants were small because they lacked vascular tissue to transport nutrients and water throughout the plant. In class, we talked about the three major phylum of non vascular plants - liverworts (phylum Hepaticophyta) and hornworts (phylum Anthocerophyta) which completely lack vascular tissue, and mosses (phylum Bryophyta) which have a primitive type of conducting tissue. To get an overview of these wonderful plants, watch the video with Matt Von Bonrat, the collections manager and adjunct curator in the Botany Department at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago.
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Maple Samara (winged seed) DispersalCheck out the biomechanics of a dispersing maple fruit. Maple fruits are adapted to catch the wind and can travel up to 6 miles in a brisk wind. You are probably most familiar with their helicopter flight as you walk under a maple tree. The video on the left shows how the curved wing of a maple samara (samara = a winged seed) creates a vortex in the air. The video is on the left.
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Explosive Seed DispersalCertain species of plants have evolved traits that enable their seeds to disperse via propulsion or "explosion". Check out this nice video by Dr. Sakamoto of the Bionic Design Laboratory at Kanazawa University in Japan.
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