Find Plant Species Near You

Plants: The Base of all Terrestrial Ecosystems

Flowers

A reliable indicator for species identification.

Bird pollinated

Hummingbird Pollinated flowers show a pattern of having bright red petals and long tubular flowers that allow the birds long slender beaks to take advantage of.

Moth pollinated

Pale yellow or white flowers that my primarily open in the evening and use strong sweet fragrances to attract moths.

Bat pollinated

Saguaro cactuses shown above can be pollinated by bats offering a large amount of nectar to attract the animals. Some plants that are exclusively pollinated by bats can have acoustic beacons that refelct bat echolocation to advertise to passing bats.

Fly pollinated

Lysichiton americanus (Skunk Cabbage) Fly pollinated smells terrible, and uses starch digestion to melt heat up and melt snow surround initial bud.

Wind pollinated

Dangling flowers of a grass species that disperse pollen by wind to other members of the same species.

Orchids

Species Specific Pollination

Hummingbird Pollinated flowers show a pattern of having bright red petals and long tubular flowers that allow the birds long slender beaks to take advantage of.

Tools and apps

INaturalist

Books and Identification Key's

Jeweler's Loop

INaturalist

Books and Identification Key's

Jeweler's Loop

Considerations

Plants are a great entry point into learning to appreciate the biodiversity around you. They are the base of most land ecosystems on the planet, and big bonus they don’t run away.

I recommend learning flowering plants at the family level. This will help you learn the general structure of flowers families that will apply at many different locations around the globe, and help you appreciate the truly amazing deviations from the typical structure.

Bonus geology and environment are big factors that cause plants to speciate. Finding unique geology is a good way to find some truly unique and beautiful plants.

Annual

Perennial

Form and Function

Deserts

In deserts the limiting resource is water. Many different adaptations occur to prevent the loss of water either from evaporation or predation.

No leaves, tiny leaves or photosynthetic stems

Many spines to prevent predation

Shiny hairs as sun block

Tropical

Here the opposite is true. Sunlight is the limiting resource not water. We see adaptations for growing fast, having larger leaves or other methods of trying to grow closer to the top of the tree canopy where sunlight is more available. Some adaptations include drip tips and waxy leaves to shed heavy rain, buttress roots for stability in shallow soil, epiphytic growth (living on other plants) to reach sunlight, lianas (climbing vines) to scale

Epiphytic growth, Living on other plants

Buttress Roots

Waxy leaves and drip tips

Parasites

Not all parasitic plants are total parasites. Some plants still photosynthesize but all of there water and some of their nutrients from an unwilling host. Paint brush and mistletoe are good examples of this called hemiparasitism. On the more extreme end species like Ghost pipe have lost their ability make chlorophyll so they just appear white, and don’t photosynthesize at all and. Now steal all of their nutrients from the host plants around them.

Ghost Pipe (Ericaceae)

Paint brush (Orobanchaceae)

European Mistletoe

Carnivorous Plants

Most carnivorous plants are found in bogs, fens, or sandy soils where water is abundant but nutrients are scarce. Because nitrogen is essential for building proteins and DNA, these plants evolved to bypass the soil entirely, turning to animal protein to survive where other plants would starve. Peep the boggy or poor soil in the pictures.

Pitcher plants

Flypaper Plants (Sticky Plants)

Bladderwort (Aquatic Carnivorous)

Snap Trap Plants

Bryophytes (The first land plants, Non Vascular)

These plants are small, simple that are low growing and require very wet conditions to be healthy growing organisms. They have no flowers no true roots and no mechanisms of transport.

They require wet conditions because they rely on diffusion between their own cells and the water they are in contact with. This is why they are small with a lot of surface area. Although they are able to go long periods of time to dry out, this is called Poikilohydry.

In fact they keep a similar strategy to their aquatic ancestors. Using water based sperm to pollinate other plants. No pollen here.

Mosses

Liverworts

Hornworts

Pteridophytes (Seedless Vascular)

Horsetails

Ferns

Club Mosses

Gymnosperms (Naked Seed Plants)

The first group to fully break away from water dependence. They protect their embryos in hard seeds and use wind to blow pollen between plants. Their seeds are “naked,” usually sitting exposed on the scale of a cone. Such as Pines, Spruces, Redwoods, and Ginkgos.
Look for: Needles or scales instead of broad leaves; woody cones.

Bristlecone Pine

Juniper

Ponderosa Pine

Gingko

Angiosperms (Flowering Plants)

Plumbing + Seeds + Flowers/Fruit.

The most commonly thought layout of what is as a plant.

The most advanced group. They use flowers to trick or bribe insects/animals into carrying pollen (more efficient than wind). They wrap their seeds inside a fruit (ovary) for protection and dispersal.Flowers (even tiny ones) and fruits (anything with seeds inside, including tomatoes and nuts).