Plant

Plants are one of the types of life form that are found on Earth, the scientific study of plants is called botany. Green plants contain chlorophyll and carry out photosynthesis. Green plants trap light from the sun through photosynthesis and convert solar energy into forms that living organisms can use. Almost all the life on Earth depends on photosynthesis for the energy it needs to survive, herbivores eat plants and carnivores eat herbivores or other carnivores. A small number of ecosystems on dark caves and round hydrothermal vents get energy from chemical reactions that don’t involve sunlight.

When we talk about plants generally we think about land plants with stems and leaves, those are called vascular plants. Plants also include mosses and algae that are too small to see without a microscope. Vascular plants almost all grow on land or in fresh water. By contrast the sea is dominated by different types of algae. Seaweed or kelp is a large type of alga, but the ocean surface also has vast amounts of invisible microscopic algae that provide food for marine ecosystems.