P3 Life Cycles of Plants (Concept Map)

Seed → young plant → adult plant

The one basic life cycle that flowering plants share, and how it keeps the plant's kind going

The life cycle of a flowering plant: seed → young plant (seedling) → adult plant → seeds again.

The seed coat protects the seed, and the seed leaf stores food for the seedling.

The root appears first, and the seedling lives on stored food until its own leaves can make food.

A plant is adult when it produces flowers and bears fruit — and the fruit carries the next generation of seeds.

Most plants reproduce by seeds; ferns and mosses reproduce by spores.

Why plants reproduce

Keeping the kind goingplants reproduce to ensure the continuity of its kind

Seeds or sporesmost plants reproduce by seeds; some (eg. ferns and mosses) reproduce by spores

Stage 1 — the seed

Seed coata thin outer layer that protects the seed

Seed leafstores food that the young plant will use for growth before it can make its own food

One seed, one planta seed grows into a new plant of the same kind

What a seed needswater, air (oxygen) and warmth to germinate — light is not needed

Stage 2 — the young plant

Root firstwhen the seed germinates, the root appears first, followed by the shoot

Living on the seedat first the seedling gets its food from the seed leaf

Leaves take overonce its leaves emerge, the seedling can make its own food

When the food runs outonce the stored food is used up, the seedling depends on its own leaves (and cannot survive without light)

Stage 3 — the adult plant

Flowers and fruitsa plant is adult when it starts to produce flowers and bear fruits

Fruits hold seedsthe fruits contain the seeds that will grow into new plants

The cycle repeatsthose seeds begin the same life cycle all over again

Watching the cycle happen

Same cycle, many plantsflowering plants grown from seeds share this same basic life cycle

Graphs of growthseed leaf's mass falls as its stored food is used up for growth, while shoot's mass rises as it grows