Plants, medicinal, edible and ornamental
In its broader constituency agrees with the subject matter of science la Botánica, and includes many clades distantly related organisms, which can be grouped in cyanobacteria, fungi, algae and land plants, organisms that have hardly any characters in common except poseercloroplastos the fact (or to be the ancestor of a chloroplast, in the case of cyanobacteria) or have no mobility (in the case of fungi).
In its more usual constituency (rated 5 in the realms of Whittaker, 19691), cyanobacteria, fungi and algae were grouped simpler in other realms.
n this classification, the Kingdom Plantae refers to multicellular organisms with eukaryotic cell type and cell wall (what some llamancélula plant, defined as the cell type of plants), arranged so that the cells have at least some degree of functional specialization.
Well-defined plants get energy from sunlight, capturing through clorofilapresente in the chloroplasts of the cells more or less specialized for it, and with that energy and through the process of photosynthesis convert carbon dioxide to the water carbonoy sugar, used as a source of chemical energy to perform all their activities. They are therefore autotrophs. They also explore the environment around them (usually through specialized organs such as roots) to absorb other essential nutrients used to build proteins and other molecules that need to survive.
It is emphasized that the division of Whittaker left out of the kingdom Plantae to multicellular algae that do not have a minimum of division of labor. Thanks to the knowledge available today on phylogeny, it is known that the division of Whittaker also groups in the kingdom Plantae to each other distantly related organisms. In the scientific environment, useful taxa are those that have a common ancestor.
The molecular analysis ADNque many have done in recent years, which have broadly resolved the phylogenetic tree of life, suggest that everything we know as "land plants (Embryophyta taxon)," green algae "(which together to form the taxónViridiplantae embriófitos), red algae (Rhodophyta taxon), and a small taxon llamadoGlaucophyta, have a common ancestor, which was the first eukaryotic organism which incorporated a cyanobacterium to your cell forming the first chloroplast.
Today, it is this group of organisms that Plant is recognized as the scientific environment (sometimes called "clade Plant", because their bodies have a common ancestor, to differentiate it from "Plant Kingdom" of the constituency Whittaker , constituency still widely used in textbooks).
Many organisms with chloroplasts (eg the "kelp") are outside the taxon, because they are direct descendants of those who purchased the first chloroplast, but acquired their chloroplasts secondarily, when incorporated green algae or red algae his cell, and today are therefore located in other taxa, despite being multicellular eukaryotes with chloroplasts.
Alternative names for the "Plantae clade, which are Primoplantae Archaeplastida and make reference to his ancestor was the first" plant "on Earth. Finally, sometimes called "plants" in all eukaryotes with chloroplasts, irrespective of whether they were acquired in a primary or secondary, or whether they are uni-or multicellular (eg it is common to use the definition of "plant" in the texts dealing with chloroplasts).
The plants have many types of life cycles. The algae can have a life cycle haplonte, haplo-diplonte or diplonte. Terrestrial plants (Embryophyta) have a life cycle diplonte haplotypes, and among them we can differentiate between the mosses in the widest sense pteridophytes and seed plants. In the mosses, the body is the photosynthetic haplonte of their life cycle, while the stadium diplonte is limited to a sprig which is nutritionally dependent haplonte stage.
In pteridophytes (club mosses, ferns and the like) what we normally call "Fern" is the diplonte stage of their life cycle, and the stadium haplonte is represented by a small photosynthetic gametophyte grows in the soil. In spermatophytes (gymnosperms and angiosperms), which normally recognize as the body of the plant is only diplonte stage of their life cycle, growing stage haplonte "masked" within the pollen grain and egg.
The plants have 3 sets of DNA, one in the nucleus, one in the mitochondria and one in chloroplasts. 3 sets of DNA were used by the Botany Sistemáticapara infer relationships among plants.
Plant taxa, like all living things are named and grouped according to the principles of the Initiative, will be briefly described here.