This document provides an overview of plant categories and structures. It discusses the main categories of plants as herbs, shrubs, trees, climbers, creepers, and weeds. It then describes the main plant structures of roots, stems, leaves, flowers, fruits, and seeds. Roots are classified as tap roots or fibrous roots. Leaves are explained to have a lamina, petiole, veins, and stomata, and their function is photosynthesis. Key processes like transpiration, pollination, and fertilization are also summarized.

1. Getting to Know Plants
Prepared by:-
Parul Gandhi
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2. Introduction
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4. Categories of Plants
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5. Herbs
➔ Plants with green and tender stems are called herbs.
➔ They are usually short and may not have branches.
➔ They are not more than 1.5 metres in height.
➔ Their stems are not woody and can be bent easily.
➔ E.g are Tomato, wheat, paddy, grass
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7. Shrubs
➔ The medium sized plants with hard and partly woody
stem are are called shrubs.
➔ Branches arise mostly from the base of the stem
giving the plant a bushy appearance without a clear
trunk.
➔ e.g China rose, duranta, lemon,Jasmine
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9. Trees
➔ Trees are very small plants with height of several
metres.
➔ They have stout trunks which mostly bear branches
near the top.
➔ The trunk is very hard and woody
➔ e.g. mango, eucalyptus, gulmohar.
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11. Climbers
➔ The plants that take support of neighbouring
structures and climb up are called climbers.
➔ They have weak stem.
➔ E.g are grapes, money plant,pea plant, grapevine,
sweet gourd, money plant, jasmine, runner beans,
green peas.
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13. Creeper
➔ The plants with weak stem that cannot stand upright
and spread on the ground are called creepers.
➔ E.g are watermelon,strawberry, pumpkin and sweet
potatoes.
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15. Weeds
➔ The undesirable plants that grow along with the crops
are called weeds.
➔ These weeds, feed on the nutrients provided to the
crops and thus reduce the supply of nutrients to the
crops, thereby, hindering their growth.
➔ The growth of these weeds needs to be limited in order
to enhance the growth of the plants.
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17. Plants structure is classified as:-
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18. Roots
➔ A part of the plant that
remains in the soil and
grows in the soil is
called root.
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19. Functions of roots
➔ Roots anchor the plant firmly in the soil.
➔ Roots absorb water and minerals from the soil.
➔ Storage: Plants prepare food and store in the form of
starch in the leaves, shoots and roots. Prominent
examples include carrots, radish, beetroot, etc.
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20. ➔ Reproduction: Even though roots are not the reproductive part
of plants, they are vegetative parts. In some plants, the roots
are a means of reproduction. For instance, new plants arise
from creeping horizontal stems called runners (stolons) in
jasmine, grass, etc. This type of reproduction is called
vegetative propagation.
➔ Ecological Function: They check soil erosion, provide
sustenance and also habitat to various organisms.
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21. Types of Roots
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22. Tap roots
➔ Tap root is a straight tapering root which grows vertically down
into soil and gives out branches on all the spices.
➔ Tap root is the main root and and the smaller side roots are called
lateral roots.
➔ Tap root itself is a quite thick but its branches are much thinner
➔ Some examples are Pea Plant, Neem tree, mango tree, Marigold,
Tulsi, Gram, Carrot,Radish, Beet and Turnip.
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23. Fibrous roots
➔ The fibrous root consist of many thin, fibre like roots of a
similar size,
➔ The fibrous roots spread out in the soil and give a firm support
to the plant.
➔ Some of the plants which have fibrous roots are sweet potato,
Paddy (rice), Grass, Maize,Millet ,Bajra Sugarcane and
Bamboo.
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Tap Roots Fibrous Roots
Tap root has only one
main and long root the
smaller roots that grow
from the main root are
called lateral roots.
Fibrous roots do not
have a main root, all
roots seem similar.
Tap roots goes deep into
the soil.
They do not go deep into
the soil.
Tap roots are found in
plants which have
reticulate venation in
their leaves.
These are found in
plants which have
parallel venation in
their leaves.

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26. Stem
➔ It is the part of plant that grows above the soil.
➔ Functions:-
1. It holds the plant upright and provides support to the plant.
2. It conducts water and minerals absorbed by the roots to
different parts of the plant.
3. It conducts food from leaves to other parts of the plant.
4. It bears flowers buds, leaves and fruits.
5. It holds leaves in position and help them to spread out.
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28. Leaf
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29. ➔ A leaf is a thin, broad, flat and green part of a plant which is
attached to the stem or branch.
➔ A plant has large number of leaves.
➔ Leaves of different plants have different shapes and sizes,
but all of them have same basic structure.
1.)A leaf consists mainly of two parts laminar and petiole.
● Lamina is commonly known as leaf blade.It is a broad green
part of the leaf.
● Petiole is commonly known as leaf stock.The thin stock
with which leaf is attached to the stem is called petiole.
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30. 2.)There is a main rib or main vein in the centre of lamina.
● A large number of vein spread out from the main rib to the all
parts of the leaf.
● The main rib and veins consists of bundles of tiny tubes some
of which carry water into the leaves and other carry away the
food from the leaf.
3.)There are minute pose on the surface of a leaf which are called
stomata.
1. which allowed the gases to move in and out of the leaf
2. also allow excess water vapours to go out of the leaf.
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31. 4.)The leaves of plants contain a green coloured pigment called
chlorophyll.
➔ Functions of chlorophyll
1. Chlorophyll impart green colour to the leaves.
2. Chlorophyll can absorb energy from sunlight.
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32. Functions of Leaf
➔ Leaves help in the interchange of gases.
➔ They release lot of water into the air through
transpiration.
➔ They prepare the food for the plant photosynthesis.
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33. Venation in Leaf
Leaf venation: The design made by veins in a leaf is called leaf
venation. There are the following two types of leaf venation:
(i) Reticulate venation: If the design of veins makes a net-like
structure on both the sides of midrib then it is called reticulate
venation. For example, mango leaf, gram leaf.
(ii) Parallel venation: If the veins are parallel to each other or to
midrib then such type of venation is called parallel venation. For
example, wheat leaf, barley leaf.
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Reticulate Venation Parallel Venation
Presence of
interconnected veins
which form a web like
network.
Presence of parallelly -
running secondary
waves to a central,
perpendicular primary
way
Occurs in dicots. Occurs in monocots
Occurs in mango,
hibiscus, ficus, etc
Occurs in banana
Bamboo wheat, grasses ,
maize ,etc

36. Photosynthesis
➔ The process by which
green plants and some
other organisms use
sunlight to synthesize
nutrients from carbon
dioxide and water to
make food and oxygen.
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37. ➔ Carbon dioxide gas needed for making food is taken by the leaves
from air and water is carried Into leaves from the soil through the
stem.
➔ Sunlight provides the energy for making food.
➔ Chlorophyll present in the green leaves helps in tracking energy from
sunlight.
➔ Oxygen gas is produced in the leaves during photosynthesis. The
oxygen goes into air.
➔ The simplest food prepared by the leaves by photosynthesis is
glucose. Some of the glucose is converted into starch. This starch is
stored as food in various parts of the plant.
➔ The process by which green plants use sunlight to make food from
carbon dioxide and water is called photosynthesis.
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38. Transpiration
➔ Plants keeps on absorbing water from the soil all the time through its
roots due to this a lot of water collects in the body of the plant. Some
of the water is used by the plant in making food . The extra water
present in the body of plant is given out constantly as water vapours
through the tiny pores of the leaves. The evaporation of water from
the leaves of plant is called transpiration.
➔ This water vapour in air helps in bringing rain.
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40. Flowers
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41. Sepals:- The green, leaf like parts in the outermost circle of a flower are called
sepals. The sepals protect the flower when it is in the form of a bud in the initial
stage sepals may either be separate from one another or joint together.
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42. Inside the sepals are the petals
of a flower. Petals of flower can
be of different shape, size and
colour. The petals of flowers
have natural cents due to which
they smell very nice. Petals also
attract insects. The ring of
colourful petals in a flower
protects the reproductive
organs of the flower
Petals
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43. ➔ When we remove sepals and
petals then we see long
filaments in a flower which
are called stamens.
➔ They are the male part of a
flower and contain pollen
groups.
➔ The stamen is made up of
two parts: filament and an
anther.
Stamen
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44. ➔ The stalk of stamen is called filament and the swollen top of
stamen is called anther.
➔ The anther contains a yellow powder like substance called Pollen.
If we cut the anther of a flower horizontally, we can see the pollen
grains in it.
➔ The pollen grains contain male sex cells of a plant. There are
many stamens in a flower. They form a ring around the female
part of the flower called pistil.
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45. Pistil(Carpel)
➔ In the centre of a flower, there is a flask shaped organ. Is flask shaped
organ of a flower is called pistil.
➔ The pistil is the female part of a flower.
➔ A pistil is made up of three organs: stigma ,style and ovary.
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46. ➔ The top part of a pistol is called stigma. Stigma is very sticky so that
pollens can stick to it.
➔ The middle part of a pistil is called style. It is a tube which connects
stigma to ovary.
➔ The swollen part at the bottom of the pistil is called ovary. The ovary
contains tiny egg like structure called of ovules. Ovary may contain
one or several ovules. These ovules contain female sex cells of the
plant.
➔ The female organ pistil is surrounded by a number of male organs
called stamens. The female part of a flower called a pistil is also
known as carpel.
➔ In most plants the stamen and pistil are present in the same flower
whereas in some plants stamen and pistil are present in separate
flowers.
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47. Fruits and Seeds
➔ A fruit is that part of plant which
contains the seeds.
➔ For example apple, orange, plums
lemon, tomatoes are all fruits.
They all have seed Inside them.
➔ The fruits and seeds are formed
from flowers by process of
pollination and fertilisation.
➔ The transfer of pollen grains
from anther of a stamen to
stigma of pistil is called
pollination.
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48. Process of pollination
➔ When the pollen grains fall on stigma they move down through
the tube called style and reaches the ovary. In the ovary, the
male sex cell present in pollen join with the female sex cells
present in ovules.
➔ The joining together of male and female sex cells is called
fertilisation.
➔ After fertilisation the ovules grow and becomes seeds. The
ovary of flowers grows and becomes a fruit.
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49. ➔ Pollination is done by insects, wind and water.
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