Page 24 - Science Coursebook

2.1 Plant adaptations

In Stage 7, you learnt about some of the ways in which organisms are adapted
to live in their habitats. A habitat is a place where an organism lives.
Question

1 Can you remember how a cactus is adapted to
live in the desert? Describe two adaptations that
help it to do this. (If you cannot remember, page
39 in the Stage 7 book will help you.)

Here are some ways in which plants are adapted to

live in three very different environments.

Spruce trees in the Arctic
Siberian spruce trees live in the huge forests that
grow north of the Arctic circle. In summer, the days
are long and warm. In winter, the days are very
short, it is always very cold and there is a lot of snow.
Spruce trees are conifers. Their leaves are thin, strong
needles. The needles have a thick, waxy covering
layer. This prevents them from losing too much water
in winter, when the roots cannot take up water from
the ground because it is all frozen solid. A spruce tree in northern Finland, in winter.
Siberian spruce trees have a tall, narrow shape, with
downward sloping branches. The heavy snow can lie
on the needles and branches without breaking them.
If even more snow falls, it will slide off.

Strangler figs in a rainforest

Rainforests are good places for a plant to live. It is
warm, there is a lot of sunlight, and there is always
plenty of water. However, there are so many plants
living in these ideal conditions that the taller ones block
the light from plants growing close to the ground.

Strangler figs are adapted to live in these conditions.
Instead of germinating on the dark forest floor, their

seeds germinate in a crack high up in a mature tree,
where the tiny seedlings can get light. The seedling’s
roots grow downwards and coil around the tree trunk.

As the fig gets older, its roots and stems get thicker

and more woody. Sometimes, the fig gets so big that it
kills the tree that it has grown around. But this doesn’t
matter to the fig tree, because its stems and roots are A young strangler fig, growing around a

now strong enough to hold it up on their own. forest tree in Peru.
22 2 Living things in their environment