| Caffeine is a pick-me-up found in tea and coffee plants |
Medicines |
| The painkiller aspirin comes from the willow tree |
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| Cocaine is used as an anaesthetic. It comes from the coca plant |
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| Digitalis is a heart drug which we get from the foxglove |
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| Morphine is the strongest painkiller and it comes from the poppy |
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| The biggest flower grows to over a metre wide |
Largest |
| The largest seed is the "double coconut" |
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| The tallest plant is the sequoia. It can get up to 85 metres tall |
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| The widest tree is a kind of cypress that grows in Mexico |
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| The world's largest vegetable is the pumpkin |
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| The world’s smallest flowering plant is the watermeal, a type of duckweed |
Smallest |
| The smallest species of tree is the dwarf willow |
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| The smallest species of cactus is blossfeldia liliputana |
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| The smallest fruit comes from the watermeal too |
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| The smallest fern is less than 1 cm in size |
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| Apple seeds contain the lethal poison cyanide |
Toxic |
| One leaf of Oleander can be enough to kill you |
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| Belladonna (beautiful lady) is also known as deadly nightshade |
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| Castor oil is good for us, but the plant it is from can cause internal bleeding |
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| Common in gardens, daffodils are poisonous |
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| Mosses have been on Earth the longest - 470 million years or so |
Oldest |
| A seagrass meadow off Ibiza is 100,000 years old |
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| The Great Basin Bristlecone Pine is over 5,000 years old |
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| The UK's oldest tree is a yew in Scotland. It's thousands of years old |
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| The Major Oak in Sherwood Forest is at least 1,000 years old |
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| In 17th Century Holland tulips were more valuable than gold |
Flowers |
| The first flowers appeared on Earth 125 million years ago |
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| Sunflowers move throughout the day so they are always facing the sun |
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| As well as sunflowers, there are moonflowers which only bloom at night |
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| The luxury spice, saffron, comes from the crocus flower |
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| There are about 600 species of carnivorous plant |
Carnivores |
| The Venus’ flytrap is the most famous meat-eating plant |
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| Victims of the pitcher plant fall into a pool of digestive juices |
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| Most carnivorous plants eat insects but some eat reptiles and mammals |
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| The oldest known carnivorous plant was around about 47 million years ago |
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| A quarter of all plants on Earth are grasses |
Grass |
| Grasses grow on every continent - even Antarctica |
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| Grasses, with their densely packed roots, help to prevent soil erosion |
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| The tallest grass is bamboo. It can grow up to 45 metres high! |
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| Many of the foods we eat (bread, cereal, rice etc.) come from grasses |
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| A vegetable is any part of a plant that is eaten but is not fruit or seed |
Vegetables |
| A tomato is a fruit, not a vegetable |
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| Almost 400 million tonnes of potatoes are grown each year |
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| Onions make us cry because they contain sulphur compounds |
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| Cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower and sprouts are all the same species |
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| Weeds are any plants that people do not want to grow |
Weeds |
| Many weeds are edible. Dandelions and nettles can both be eaten |
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| The most successful weeds are ones that produce a lot of seeds |
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| The thistle is a weed, but it helped the Scots to defeat the Vikings |
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| Velcro was inspired by the weed burdock |
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