The Private Life of Plants (1995) is a six-part BBC television series presented by David Attenborough, on the growth, movement, reproduction and survival of plants around the world. There was an accompanying book, and the series is available on DVD. Jump to: navigation, search 1995 was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Corporate logo of the British Broadcasting Corporation The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is the national broadcaster of the United Kingdom. ... A television program is the content of television broadcasting. ... Attenborough with a pair of albatrosses in the series Life in the Freezer Sir David Frederick Attenborough, OM , CH , CVO , CBE , FRS, born May 8, 1926 in London, (the younger brother of director and actor Richard Attenborough), is the presenter of many ground-breaking and award winning BBC wildlife documentaries... Jump to: navigation, search Divisions Land plants (embryophytes) Non-vascular plants (bryophytes) Hepaticophyta - liverworts Anthocerotophyta - hornworts Bryophyta - mosses Vascular plants (tracheophytes) Lycopodiophyta - clubmosses Equisetophyta - horsetails Pteridophyta - true ferns Psilotophyta - whisk ferns Ophioglossophyta - adderstongues Seed plants (spermatophytes) †Pteridospermatophyta - seed ferns Pinophyta - conifers Cycadophyta - cycads Ginkgophyta - ginkgo Gnetophyta - gnetae Magnoliophyta - flowering plants... Jump to: navigation, search DVD is an optical disc storage media format that can be used for data storage, including movies with high video and sound quality. ...

Background information

The series makes extensive use of time-lapse sequences in order to grant insights that would otherwise be almost impossible. As Attenborough explains in the first part, plants live on a different time scale, and even though their life is highly complex and often surprising, most of it is invisible to us unless we show events that happen over months or even years within seconds. Like many traditional wildlife documentaries, it makes use of almost no computer animation. The series also discusses fungi, although these do not belong to the kingdom of plants (which is pointed out). Time-lapse photography is a cinematography technique whereby each film frame is captured at a rate much slower then it will be played back. ... Computer animation is the art of creating moving images via the use of computers. ... Divisions Chytridiomycota Zygomycota Ascomycota Basidiomycota The Fungi (singular: fungus) are a large group of organisms ranked as a kingdom within the Domain Eukaryota. ...

The series teaches the mechanisms of evolution transparently by showing the advantages of various types of plant behavior in action. The adaptations are often complex, as it becomes clear that the environment to which plants must adapt consists not just of soil, water and weather, but also of other plants, fungi, insects, animals, and even humans. The series shows that cooperative strategies often are much more effective than predatory ones, as with predatory strategies, the prey will often develop ways to defend itself -- from plants growing spikes to insects learning to recognize mimicry. Yet humans can work around all these rules of nature, so Attenborough concludes with a plea to preserve plant in the interest of self-preservation. Jump to: navigation, search Charles Darwin, father of the theory of evolution by natural selection. ...

Each episode has a duration of 50 minutes. The series won a 1995 George Foster Peabody Award in the category Television. The George Foster Peabody Awards, more commonly known as simply the Peabody Awards, are annual awards given for excellence in radio and television broadcasting and cable television within the United States. ...

The series was preceeded by Trials of Life (1990) and followed by The Life of Birds (1998). Trials of Life is a BBC (in conjunction with The Australian Broadcasting Service and Turner Broadcasting System Inc. ... Jump to: navigation, search 1990 is a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The Life of Birds is a BBC (in conjunction with BBC Worldwide Americas Inc. ... Jump to: navigation, search 1998 is a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year of the Ocean. ...

Episodes

• Travelling
• Growing
• Flowering
• The Social Struggle
• Living Together
• Surviving

Travelling

shows how plants travel from place to place: as seeds, by growing or by being carried by wind and water.

Flowering

details the various ways that plants reproduce. Some use sophisticated mechanisms like mimicry, traps, perfumes, and "landing platforms" for insects to transfer pollen from one plant to the next. Others rely on the wind, but all try to avoid self-fertilization. SEM image of pollen grains from a variety of common plants: sunflower (Helianthus annuus), morning glory (Ipomea purpurea), hollyhock (Sildalcea malviflora), lily (Lilium auratum), primrose (Oenothera fruticosa), and castor bean (Ricinus communis). ... Self-fertilization (also known as autogamy) occurs in hermaphroditic organisms where the two gametes fused in fertilization come from the same individual. ...

Social struggle

explains the strategies that plants use to win in a competitive environment. They need to get sunlight, so many climb as high as possible. Others rely on being there first, claiming fertile ground quickly and thereby making it hard for other plants to flourish. Some plants have developed aggressive strategies, such as the strangler fig which takes nutrients and sunlight away from a host tree, eventually killing it. Jump to: navigation, search Binomial name Ficus citrifolia Hort. ...

Living together

describes various mechanisms of symbiosis, mutually beneficial or exploitative. It explains in detail, for example, how many plants recruit ants to defend themselves against insects or even competing plants, and provide them with specially adapted food and shelter in return. Some plants rely on fire to distribute their seeds, thereby claiming freshly burned ground ahead of the competition. Common Clownfish (Amphiprion ocellaris) in their magnificent sea anemone (Heteractis magnifica) home. ... Subfamilies Dorylomorph subfamilies Apomyrminae Cerapachyinae Dorylinae Ecitoninae Formicomorph subfamilies: Aneuretinae Dolichoderinae Formicinae - e. ... Jump to: navigation, search A large bonfire Fire is a form of combustion. ...

Survival

describes plants living in extreme environments such as the Arctic and Antarctic, extremely high altitudes, the deep ocean and deserts. These plans have special adaptations to their environment -- the Arctic willow, for example, is a tree that grows horizontally in order to avoid the extreme Arctic winds, many other flowers accomplish the same by being very small. Some plants form cushions and thereby share the temperature between them, others develop hairs like animals. Even in the most extreme environments, simple organisms like algae and lichens can grow and provide food for other lifeforms. The red line indicates the 10°C isotherm in July, commonly used to define the Arctic region border The Arctic is the area around the Earths North Pole. ... Greek ἀνταρκτικός, opposite the arctic) is a continent surrounding the Earths South Pole. ... Jump to: navigation, search The worlds oceans as seen from the South Pole Ocean (from Okeanos, a Greek god of sea and water; Greek ωκεανός) covers almost three quarters (71%) of the surface of the Earth, and nearly half of the worlds marine waters are over 3000 m deep. ... Jump to: navigation, search A dune in the Egyptian desert Desert in California In geography, a desert is a landscape form or region that receives little precipitation - less than 250 mm per year. ... A seaweed (Laurencia) up close: the branches are multicellular and only about 1 mm thick. ... Crustose and foliose lichens on a wall Lichens are symbiotic organisms made up by the association of microscopic green algae or cyanobacteria and filamentous fungi. ...

External link

• The Private Life of Plants

describes plants living in extreme environments such as the Arctic and Antarctic, extremely high altitudes, the deep ocean and deserts. These plants have special adaptations to their environment -- the Arctic willow, for example, is a tree that grows horizontally in order to avoid the extreme Arctic winds, many other flowers accomplish the same by being very small. Some plants form cushions and thereby share the temperature between them, others develop hairs like animals. Even in the most extreme environments, simple organisms like algae and lichens can grow and provide food for other lifeforms.