What is Plant Kingdom or Kingdom Plantae? Plant Kingdom definition, description, meaning:
A main classification of living organisms that includes all plants. Also called vegetable kingdom. They include familiar organisms such as trees, flowers, herbs, bushes, grasses, vines, ferns, mosses, and green algae. The scientific study of plants is known as botany.
Virtually all other living creatures depend on plants to survive. Through photosynthesis, plants convert energy from sunlight into food stored as carbohydrates. Because animals cannot get energy directly from the sun, they must eat plants (or other animals that have had a vegetarian meal) to survive. Plants also provide the oxygen humans and animals breathe, because plants use carbon dioxide for photosynthesis and release oxygen into the atmosphere.Plants are found on land, in oceans, and in fresh water. They have been on Earth for millions of years. Plants were on Earth before animals and currently number about 260,000 species. Three features distinguish plants from animals:
The worldwide array of plant life, including plants that have roots in the soil, plants that live on or within other plants and animals, plants that float on or swim in water, and plants that are carried in the air. Fungi used to be included in the plant kindom because they looked more like plants than animals and did not move about. It is now known that fungi are probably closer to animals in terms of their evolutionary relationships. Also once included in plants were the “blue-green algae,” which are now clearly seen to be bacteria, although they are photosynthetic (and presumably the group of organisms from which the chloroplasts present in true plants were derived). The advent of modern methods of phylogenetic DNA analysis has allowed such distinctions, but even so, what remains of the plantlike organisms is still remarkably divergent and difficult to classify.
At least four classification systems are in common use: Plants are classified into 12 phyla or divisions based largely on reproductive characteristics; they are classified by tissue structure into non-vascular (mosses) and vascular plants (all others); by "seed" structure into those that reproduce through naked seeds, covered seeds, or spores; or by stature divided into mosses, ferns, shrubs and vines, trees, and herbs.
Meaning:
The taxonomic kingdom comprising all living or extinct plants
Classified under:
Nouns denoting plants
Synonyms:
kingdom Plantae; plant kingdom; Plantae
Hypernyms ("plant kingdom" is a kind of...):
kingdom (the highest taxonomic group into which organisms are grouped; one of five biological categories: Monera or Protoctista or Plantae or Fungi or Animalia)
Meronyms (members of "plant kingdom"):
flora; plant; plant life (a living organism lacking the power of locomotion)
plant genus (a genus of plants)
plant family (a family of plants)
Cryptogamia (in former classification systems: one of two major plant divisions, including all plants that do not bear seeds: ferns, mosses, algae, fungi)
Phanerogamae (in former classification systems: one of two major plant divisions, including all seed-bearing plants; superseded by the division Spermatophyta)
division Spermatophyta; Spermatophyta (seed plants; comprises the Angiospermae (or Magnoliophyta) and Gymnospermae (or Gymnospermophyta); in some classification systems Spermatophyta is coordinate with Pteridophyta (spore producing plants having vascular tissue and roots) and Bryophyta (spore producing plants lacking vascular tissue and roots))
division Pteridophyta; Pteridophyta (containing all the vascular plants that do not bear seeds: ferns, horsetails, club mosses, and whisk ferns; in some classifications considered a subdivision of Tracheophyta)
Bryophyta; division Bryophyta (a division of nonflowering plants characterized by rhizoids rather than true roots and having little or no organized vascular tissue and showing alternation of generations between gamete-bearing forms and spore-bearing forms; comprises true mosses (Bryopsida) and liverworts (Hepaticopsida) and hornworts (Anthoceropsida))
plant order (the order of plants)
division Tracheophyta; Tracheophyta (in former classifications: comprising plants with a vascular system including ferns and fern allies as well as seed plants)
Thallophyta (used only in former classifications: comprising what is now considered a heterogeneous assemblage of flowerless and seedless organisms: algae; bacteria; fungi; lichens)
Lycophyta (used in some classifications for the class Lycopsida: club mosses)
