TRANSCRIPT

INTRODUCTION

I'm Marty Stouffer. All life on earth is dependent on the energy from plants. All our food and all the oxygen in the air we breathe have their source in the miracle of photosynthesis. Plants also provide clothing, shelter, and products from paper, to wonder drugs.

They are so basic that we tend to take them for granted. Yet consider that some plants are carnivorous, some are luminescent, and some are even self-planting, like these Filaree seeds drilling themselves into the ground.

Even so, plants haven't received much respect. We mow and walk on them, burn and poison them, pick and eat them. Let's take a little time to realize how incredible a tiny green sprout can be. Let's meet some "PECULIAR PLANTS."

TRANSITION TO WATERS EDGE

Plants come in many shapes and sizes and have many different methods of reproduction.

DUCK WEED

This may look like slime to us, but to waterfowl it's a feast. This unusual perennial is Duckweed smallest and simplest of our green flowering plants.
All 15 species of duckweed produce male and female flowers usually on the same plant. New growth simply sprouts from old. Other plants have far more complicated systems of seed dispersal.

TIME-LAPSE OPENING OF FILAREE FLOWER

More conventional in appearance (but not in behavior) is the filaree. It has unusual seeds with spring loaded tails. When the seeds spring off, they go as far as three feet. The spiked tail begins to curl. If the seed lands on level ground, this curling action will push the seed along.

But if the seed lands in a place where the tail is obstructed, it turns in a spiral, actually drilling itself into the soil. During a rain, or at night when the temperature drops and the humidity rises, the tail reverses its spiral and drills the seed even deeper.

Eventually the tail dries, and starts to twist again, then breaks off, leaving the Filaree seed safely planted.

APHID

Arch enemy of weeds like the Filaree, as well as almost every other plant, is the Aphid. It feeds on the juices of stems, leaves and flowers.

Found almost everywhere, the aphid reproduces so rapidly and in such great numbers that it can destroy entire crops or complete orchards.

CHITRID

Another parasite known as the Chitrid is far more selective. It attacks only the filaree. Chitrid zoospores (zo'-e-spores') develop and mature inside red, bead-like sacs that sap the Filaree's strength. But before the Chitrid deals its fatal blow the early blooming filaree has already jettisoned the seeds of a new generation.

HARVESTER ANTS

Filaree is also popular with harvester ants. Unlike the parasitic Chitrid, the ants actually help the Filaree. They carry great quantities of the seeds into their underground nests where they harvest the edible outgrowths. Then the ants drag the spikes back outside the nest. Uneaten seeds in these piles will eventually germinate.

Both Filaree and ant benefit from their association with each other. Like the Filaree, the Wild Oat is another plant which can actually sow itself. This member of the lily family also has seeds with spike like tails.

Like the Filarees, the tails are sensitive to humidity. As the seeds dry out, their tails twist into a tight coil.

TIME-LAPSE OF WILD OAT SEED PLANTING ITSELF

On humid nights or when the ground is moist, the tails untwist and the seeds crawl around almost like crickets. This adaptation serves to disperse the offspring away from the parent plant.

Other methods of seed dispersal rely on the wind.

The most successful weed in America is the dandelion.

DANDELION

The dandelion has tremendous reproductive powers. A showy seed ball emerges after the brilliant flower has bloomed. The slightest breeze can carry the tiny seeds great distances. The fluffy hairs act as parachutes and allow the seeds to stay aloft almost indefinitely if the relative humidity is less than 70%. Once the humidity rises the dandelion seeds float to earth.

The dandelion defeats most efforts to kill it or crowd it out. The hardy weed puts down a fat tap root that insures the plant will succeed even if decapitated. A small fragment of the root can grow into a new plant.

Dandelion leaves discharge a repulsive ethylene gas that discourages
competitors.

Most people who take pride in well manicured yards would gladly send the pesky Dandelion back to Europe where it came from. Too late, the Dandelion is here to stay.

HONEY BEE

Like the dandelion, the Honey Bee is an European import, brought over by 17th century settlers. Today these bees which pollinate crops and produce honey also help to spread the prodigious dandelion.

But bees aren't the only animals responsible for the spread of plant life. Birds swallow seeds because of their edible outer coating.

FISH CROWS

These Fish Crows, feeding on fruit in southern Florida are unwitting accomplices to murder.

They feed on the fruit of the Strangler Fig, a relative of the fig enjoyed by humans. The fig seeds pass through the birds, unharmed. On occasion the seeds are deposited on the branches of other trees.

The harmless looking fig sprout that emerges is an epiphyte on the branch of its "host" tree. A small sprig of leaves grows upward and threadlike aerial roots grow downward. When the roots reach the ground they burrow into the soil and energize the entire plant. The strangler fig wraps around the branches and trunk of the "host" tree. It sends up a dense canopy of leaves, blocking the sun from its victim. The strangler begins to develop a trunk of its own that encases the host tree.

The host is doomed, deprived of sunlight, and its roots robbed of water and minerals by the vigorous strangler fig. The whole process may take a hundred years or more but, in the end, the strangler fig remains clinging tightly to its dead host which will eventually rot away.

COCKLEBUR

Anyone who's ever spend hours pulling burrs off of their clothes will recognize this prickly weed. It's the Cocklebur. The Cocklebur is spread by nearly every fur bearing animal which is unlucky enough to meet up with it. The Cocklebur's spiny fruit has hundreds of tiny hooked prongs masterfully designed to attach themselves to an unsuspecting passerby, as this Red Fox will soon discover.

Each bur contains two seeds. Only one seed grows the first year with the second seed growing the following year. So each Cocklebur produces two generations. This means "double trouble" for farmers who fight an uphill battle to eradicate the persistent weed. The fox carries the burrs away from the parent plant.

It may be hard to believe but the bothersome Cocklebur is a member of the delicate daisy family.

TIME-LAPSE OF COCKLEBUR

If the burrs fall on suitable soil the cycle will continue. New Cockleburs will spring up with prickly burrs to frustrate farmers and fur bearers alike.

Hooked spines can help to nourish plants as well as to propagate them. The fish hook cactus of our southwestern deserts has unique hooked spines that allow rain or dew to be captured.

This precious moisture runs down the hooks and is absorbed by the plant.

TIME-LAPSE OF FISH HOOK CACTUS AND MOUSE

Like the fish hook cactus, the Resurrection Plant of the Chiuahuan Desert has also adapted to life with little rain.

TIME-LAPSE OF RESURRECTION PLANT

It remains in a dormant state until receiving enough moisture to rehydrate. Then it transforms into a green, fern like plant that may serve to nourish a grasshopper mouse.

The Resurrection Plant can remain in limbo for as long as a hundred years before rising up again.


TRANSITION TO SKY/TIME-LAPSE OF FLOWERS BLOOMING

All life on earth is dependent on green plants. Plants replenish our supply of oxygen and produce carbohydrates. Through the process of Photosynthesis sunlight is absorbed by plant leaves. This solar energy powers photochemical reactions.

ANIMATION OF PHOTOSYNTHESIS

Carbon dioxide enters the leaf and combines chemically with water from the roots of the plant to produce carbohydrates, the fuel required to sustain life. It's ironic that the oxygen released into the atmosphere is only a by-product.

MICROSCOPIC PLANT CELLS

Under a microscope we can see leaf cells alive with a constant stream of green structures called chloroplasts. Chloroplasts contain the light absorbing pigment chlorophyll which carries out the amazing and intricate process of photosynthesis.

TRANSITION TO FOREST

Amazing as well, are the abilities of plants to adapt even when the environmental cards seem stacked against them.

In boggy, acid soil, decay takes place slowly. This means that there is little nitrogen available for plants.

PITCHER PLANT

The pitcher plant makes up for this deficiency with some evolutionary "sleight of hand".

A predatory plant, the pitcher holds a small pool of water in its modified leaf stalk. Insects are attracted to the water (or to the odor of decay within.) Once inside the pitcher, the insect cannot escape because of a lining of downward pointing hairs. Bacteria begins to decompose its body and enzymes convert its protein into usable nitrogen.

To protect its little system the pitcher plant has a handy lid to keep out the rain.

Some plants lack chlorophyll and so must depend on other organisms for their food-like these Saprophytes which absorb their nourishment from dead matter.

FUNGI TIME-LAPSE

They're members of the fungi family, simple non-flowering plants that lack true roots, stems, and leaves.

The main products of decay caused by fungi are water and carbon dioxide. The fungi return to the air nearly all the carbon dioxide that green plants have taken from it.

BIOLUMINESCENCE MUSHROOMS

Most mysterious of the fungi are Bioluminescence mushrooms the plants that glow. Scientists can't agree on why the mushrooms glow but glow they do. Their soft, strange light has been called "Foxfire".

Like the fungi, algae (al'je) have no true leaves, stems or roots but they do contain chlorophyll. It is the simple algae that gets credit for the transformation of our earth from barren planet to present life-sustaining environment.

MICROSCOPIC ALGAE

Each algae cell possesses the power of photosynthesis.

Largest and most complicated of the algae are the seaweed. Found most frequently in tidal waters, they range from shoreline to depths of one hundred feet or more.

KELP

Most conspicuous of the brown seaweeds are the Kelps. A group containing some of the world's largest plants. They're essential to aquatic life, providing both oxygen and food.

Kept afloat by bulb-like air bladders, giant Kelp can be over two hundred feet long.

LICHEN

Millions of years ago fresh water algae gradually invaded the land, washing up on rocky shores of ancient lakes. When a compatible alga came in contact with a member of the fungi family, a truly peculiar plant was formed the lichen. Part algae and part fungus the hardy Lichen can survive in places where no other plants are found from the hottest deserts to the highest mountains.

The fungus part of the lichen discharge an acid that etches into rock and dissolves minerals which can be used by the alga. The fungus also absorbs moisture needed by the algae and provides a stable home on rocks or trees.

The algae, in turn, produces life-giving carbohydrates through the process of photosynthesis. Without these carbohydrates the fungus would die.

The curious lichen actually produces soil by disintegrating its rock or tree "host" the soil produced may create a place where other plants can take root and grow.

CLOSE-UP OF LICHEN

There are 15,000 varieties of lichens, some are drab but others are quite colorful. A lichen may live almost 5,000 years! Second in longevity only to the Bristle cone pine.

Some plants even have the ability to warn us of danger. The lichen of this southern swamp, as well as almost all lichens, are particularly sensitive to air pollution. Where the air is pure they can thrive, but they're rarely found in large cities and industrial areas. Scientists who study the deceptively complex lichens are called "lichenologists". They spend considerable time debating the exact nature of the algae fungus relationship. Even today the lowly lichen inspires a lot of lively controversy.

Botanists believe that of our 22,000 American species of higher plants, as many as 3,000 plants face extinction. The future warnings and cures they might provide could be lost forever unless we work to preserve them.

CONCLUSION

It's hard to imagine our world without plants. In fact, civilization began with the harvesting of crops. And, as many products as they already provide, only one tenth of all plants have been studied and tested.

As useful as they are, they're also inspiring. Think of the magic in a tiny seed growing to be a giant Redwood, in sunlight stored for eons as fossil fuel, in the simple beauty of a rose, and in the amazing and amusing "PECULIAR PLANTS".

I'm Marty Stouffer. Until next time, enjoy our WILD AMERICA.