IMAGINE A WORLD WITHOUT PLANTS! The important role plants play in stabilizing and regulating the environment is no secret. Plants help keep the world climate temperate, purify water, and prevent soil erosion. Plants not only provide aesthetics, but also the basis for human survival as food, shelter, medicine, clothing and even fuel. Plants contribute to biodiversity and sustainability. Plants also serve as a large component of Nigeria economy as part of the agriculture industry from fruit production to horticultural services.
Plants, also called green plants, are multicellular eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. They form an unranked clade Viridiplantae (Latin for green plants) that includes the flowering plants, conifers and other gymnosperms, ferns, clubmosses, hornworts, liverworts, mosses and the green algae. Green plants exclude the red and brown algae, the fungi, archaea, bacteria and animals.
Green plants have cell walls with cellulose and obtain most of their energy from sunlight via photosynthesis by primary chloroplasts, derived from endosymbiosis with cyanobacteria. Their chloroplasts contain chlorophylls a and b, which gives them their green color. Some plants are parasitic and have lost the ability to produce normal amounts of chlorophyll or to photosynthesize. Plants are also characterized by sexual reproduction, modular[clarification needed] and indeterminate growth, and an alternation of generations, although asexual reproduction is also common.
Plant make the world a beautiful place to live in. They provide the oxygen we breath in, the paper we write on, the furniture we use and foods we consume on a daily basis. Indeed, plants are very useful! They help distribute and purify the planet's water. They also help move water from the soil to the atmosphere through a process called transpiration.
One-quarter of all prescription drugs come directly from or are derivatives of plants. Additionally, four out of five people around the world today rely on plants for primary health care. Of course, aside from humans' different uses, plants make up the backbone of all habitats. Other species of fish and wildlife also depend on plants for food and shelter.Plants store carbon, and have helped keep much of the carbon dioxide produced from the burning of fossil fuels out of the atmosphere.
