Section outline
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Introduction
Plants are organisms characterized by the following traits:
- Despite their enormous variation from a tiny moss to a giant tree, all plants are multicellular and eukaryotic (i.e., each cell possesses a membrane-bound nucleus that contains the chromosomes).
- Plants are autotrophic organisms able to synthetize their own food by using photosynthesis process.
- Plants are fixed in the substratum and depend on the environmental conditions and adapt by the cellulosic cell wall, the protective tissues and some molecules such lignin which give a stiff form to plants.
- Plants have few differentiated tissues or organs and for that they have an indefinite growth and a high capacity of reproduction (sexual reproduction, vegetative propagation).
- Unlike to animals, plants have two alternating life generations: the diploid sporophyte which produces spores and the haploid gametophyte which produces gametes.
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Learning objectives