Download How To Make One Plant Into Many

How To Make One Plant Into Many - asexual reproduction, self pollination, gamete, generate
How To Make One Plant Into Many
asexual reproduction, self pollination, gamete, generate
Plants Unit
What if you could make an exact copy of yourself from just one cell? You would make this new person
from the same directions that made you. You and your double would have the same eye and hair color,
the same nose and mouth, the same body shape. While this idea may sound crazy, plants make new
plants this way every day. This kind of copying does not only happen in plants. Your body also makes
new skin cells in the same way.
All living things begin with the building blocks of life called cells. Each cell has a copy of the plant or
animal’s special directions, which exist in its genes. In a plant or person, every cell has the exact same
directions – the directions for making you. If cells have food and other basic things, they can divide to
make new cells or come together to make new organisms. When new living things form by cells dividing
or joining together, we say they generate something new, like new cells or seeds. To generate means to
make something new.
In both plants and people, boy and girl cells come together to make a seed. For plants, the seed can
become a new tree or flower when it is planted and watered. The boy and girl plant cells each offer half of
the new plant’s directions. When the cells make a seed, that new plant is the only one of its kind, unlike
anything else on earth. The boy and girl cells are called gametes. A gamete is a cell that has half of the
directions needed to make a new organism. In plants, pollen grains have boy gametes and ovules have
girl gametes.
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How To Make One Plant Into Many - asexual reproduction, self pollination, gamete, generate
Some plants can make new plants without cells from other plants. Instead, these plants just make a copy
of their own genes, just like your skin cells do every day. One cell divides into two, and the two new cells
each have the exact same directions as the parent cell. The two new cells are twins. While your body
cannot make new babies this way, your skin cells can make new cells on their own. Asexual
reproduction is when one living thing makes more living things with just the directions from itself, like a
copy.
Asexual reproduction is not the only strange way plants can make new plants. Many of the plants that we
see every day have both girl and boy parts on the same plant. These boy and girl parts can be on the
same flower, or on separate flowers or cones on the same plant. This is very different from people, where
each person normally has either just girl parts or just boy parts. Sometimes if one plant has both boy and
girl parts, it can bring its own cells together to make a new plant. Self-pollination is when a plant’s boy
cell (pollen) reaches its own girl cell.
When a bee visits a flower, it picks up pollen with the male plant cells. Flowers show a pollination
syndrome, which means certain traits, like smell and color, draw certain pollinators to them. When the
pollinators fly on to the next flower with the same color and smell, they take the pollen with them so seeds
can form.
Plants can make new plants in many different ways. Like people, plants also join boy and girl cells
together to make seeds. Most often those cells come from two different plants, but some plants bring their
own boy and girl cells together through self-pollination. Unlike people, plant cells can divide to make new
plants that look just like the parent plant through a process called asexual reproduction. In people, making
babies requires boy and girl cells from two different people. Still some of your cells, like skin cells, are
made by dividing into new cells; it is a good thing, since you lose dead skin cells every day.
REFERENCES:
Biology4kids. (2013). "Plant Reproduction – They'll Make More." Biology4Kids.
http://www.biology4kids.com/files/plants_reproduction.html
Biology4Kids. (2013). "Flower Structure." Biology4Kids.
http://www.biology4kids.com/extras/show_plants/12.html
Christina Piper. (2014). "Kinds of Plants That Are Self-Pollinated." Demand Media.
http://homeguides.sfgate.com/kinds-plants-selfpollinated-60532.html
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