- Plants are primary producers, allowing all other life forms the chance to live. They are the only organisms with the ability to make their own food. Plants gather energy from sunshine, carbon dioxide from air, and minerals and water from soil, converting everything they consume into water and oxygen through the process of photosynthesis.
- Humans and animals depend on the oxygen produced by plants to breathe. A healthy adult needs about 53 liters of oxygen ever hour to live (on average). Every plant leaf produces about 5 ml per hour. Fortunately, humans can count on a steady supply of oxygen from grass, trees, bushes, flowers and even weeds. However, destroying too many plants could easily upset the balance between the number of humans and animals--and the resulting air pollution--and the number of plants that provide oxygen.
- Plants also provide nutrition for new plants by adding nutrients to replenish the soil when they die and decompose. The richer the soil, the healthier the new plants will be. Decomposed plants and manure from plant-eating animals makes an excellent, nutrient-dense fertilizer for new plants. The repetition of growth, decomposition and regeneration is the constant cycle that sustains life.
- Throughout history, plants have played an important role in medicine. Today, close to 3,000 types of plants are used as medicines to treat everything from fevers to heart attacks to the plague. Over time, the practice of herbal medicine has grown increasingly more complex. Natural plant substances are added into into pills, tinctures and powders.
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