Plants yr8

• Plant


  Living thing that needs to reproduce
• Flower


  • Contains the reproductive organs
• Parts of the stamen (male part of the flower)

  • Anther
  • Filament
• Parts of the carpel (female part of the flower)

  • Stigma
  • Style
  • Ovary
• Ovule


  Contains the female sex cells (egg cells or ova)
• Pollination


  Pollen grains are transferred from an anther to a stigma
• Ways pollination can occur

  • Insect pollination
  • Wind pollination
• Insect-pollinated plants


  • Scented flowers with bright coloured petals to attract insects
  • Flowers containing nectar (a sugary liquid that insects feed on)
  • Sticky stigma to take the pollen off the insect as it goes from plant to plant to feed on the nectar
• Wind-pollinated plants


  • Usually have flowers with no scent and small dull petals
  • No nectar in the flowers
  • Long filaments hang the anthers outside the flower so a lot of pollen is blown away
  • Stigmas are feathery to catch pollen as it blows by
• Fertilisation


  1. Pollen grain lands on stigma

  2. Pollen tube grows down through style and into ovary

  3. Male nucleus fuses with female nucleus inside ovule
• Seed


  Develops from fertilised ovule
• Ways seeds can be dispersed

  • Wind dispersal
  • Animal dispersal
  • Explosions/ballistic
  • Drop and roll
• Photosynthesis


  A chemical process which takes place in every green plant to produce food in the form of glucose (a sugar)
• Glucose


  A carbohydrate made up of the elements carbon, hydrogen and oxygen
• Plants


  • Can use glucose to increase their biomass (i.e. to grow)
  • Convert glucose into starch, which is easier to store
• Photosynthesis


  Happens in the green bits of a plant, but mainly in the leaves
• Photosynthesis


  1. Plants need light, chlorophyll, water and carbon dioxide

  2. Chlorophyll absorbs sunlight and uses its energy to convert carbon dioxide and water into glucose

  3. Oxygen is also produced
• The rate of photosynthesis is affected by factors such as the amount of carbon dioxide, chlorophyll, light, and temperature
• Investigating photosynthesis by collecting gas


  1. Get a sample of an aquatic plant

  2. Put it under a lamp in a beaker of sodium bicarbonate solution

  3. The plant will produce bubbles of oxygen as it photosynthesises

  4. Measure the amount of oxygen produced in a given time to show the rate of photosynthesis

  5. Repeat the experiment with the lamp at different distances to see how light intensity affects the rate
• The green colour of leaves is linked to starch production
• Starch test


  1. Add iodine solution to a leaf sample

  2. If it turns blue-black, starch is present

  3. Parts of the leaf that photosynthesised will turn blue-black, parts that didn't will stay brown
• Plants respire, just like all living organisms
• When plants respire, they take in oxygen and give out carbon dioxide, the opposite of photosynthesis