Plants (Latin Plantae or Vegetabilia) are studied by the science of botany, for the 21st century scientists have more than 320 thousand plant species, most of which belong to flowering plants (about 280 thousand species), the number of plants increases every year, new species are constantly being discovered.

What would our planet be without plants?
It is difficult to overestimate the role of plants both in nature and in life and human economic activity. Thanks to the process of photosynthesis that takes place in the green leaves of plants with the participation of sunlight there is the formation of oxygen, which is vitally important for all the inhabitants of the Earth’s surface. Plants are the richest source of vitamins and minerals, an indispensable element of the trophic food chains, a producer of various organic substances in nature from inorganic raw materials. If plants did not exist in nature, there would be no animals or humans, and the planet itself would look like a lifeless desert, it would not even have soil and no landscape diversity created by plant groups. Man should appreciate and understand the role of plants in his life, because without them he simply would not exist, planting and caring for small sprouts of green life, we become cleaner and kinder, we join the mysteries of nature and the universe.

One of the most important functions of green plants is the production of oxygen through photosynthesis. The leaves of green plants contain the pigment chlorophyll, which, under the influence of sunlight, divides the water extracted by the roots from the soil into hydrogen and oxygen (photolysis process). Also, the carbon dioxide absorbed by plants in the presence of chlorophyll and without the obligatory participation of sunlight reacts with water to form glucose and oxygen (carbon dioxide reduction process). By combining the resulting glucose with sulfur, nitrogen and phosphorus compounds from the soil, plants generate proteins, fats, starch, various vitamins and other complex compounds necessary for their further life activity.

The rate of photosynthesis depends on the intensity of light, the concentration of oxygen and carbon dioxide, and the ambient temperature. Some of the O2 produced is released into the atmosphere and some is used by the plants themselves to breathe. Each year, plants release up to 510 tons of oxygen into the atmosphere, they maintain its constant gas balance to a state suitable for breathing. Rising to the upper layers of the atmosphere, oxygen turns into ozone and becomes part of the ozone layer that protects our planet from the sun’s damaging UV radiation.

Plants produce up to 170 billion tons of organic matter each year, most of which is produced by terrestrial plants. Plants help to form the Earth’s topsoil, the soil, and ensure the constant recycling of minerals necessary for soil fertility.

Plants, by recycling 90% of the moisture that the land evaporates into the atmosphere, significantly soften the Earth’s climate and shape the temperature regime of the planet. By absorbing carbon dioxide they reduce the so-called greenhouse effect, although man as a result of his economic activities (burning fuel and cutting down large areas of humid equatorial forests) and tries to reduce all efforts “lungs of the planet” to zero.

Vegetation, covering the earth with a dense carpet, protects it from drying out, creates a milder, more humid climate, the roots keep the soil from weathering and erosion, prevent the appearance of gullies and landslides. Plants release into the air specific substances phytoncides, destructive to pathogenic bacteria, are the first important step in the trophic food chains.

Man and plants
Plants play a huge role in human life, because in addition to the fact that they are sources of oxygen needed for breathing, they are used for food (cereals, vegetables, legumes, tree fruits, essential oil crops, sugar-bearing plants), they make medicines, clothes, houses, they serve as raw materials for industrial production of paper, paint, rubber and other various useful substances.

Plants are an irreplaceable source of vitamins and minerals, deficiency of which can lead to the development of serious diseases in humans. In animal husbandry, fodder crops are used as food for animals, in large metropolitan areas they absorb excess carbon dioxide, serve sanitary and hygienic purposes by absorbing harmful substances from the air, ionizing it and humidifying it.