Terrestrial plant (original) (raw)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Plant that lives on land

This article is about plants that grow on land rather than in water or on trees. For the major plant lineage known as "land plants", see Embryophyte.

Terrestrial plants on State Game Land 100, near German Settlement, in Centre County, Pennsylvania

A terrestrial plant is a plant that grows on, in or from land.[1] Other types of plants are aquatic (living in or on water), semiaquatic (living at edge or seasonally in water), epiphytic (living on other plants), and lithophytic (living in or on rocks).

The distinction between aquatic and terrestrial plants is often blurred because many terrestrial plants are able to tolerate periodic submersion and many aquatic species have both submersed and emersed forms.[2] There are relatively few obligate submersed aquatic plants (species that cannot tolerate emersion for even relatively short periods), but some examples include members of Hydrocharitaceae and Cabombaceae, Ceratophyllum, and Aldrovanda, and most macroalgae (e.g. Chara and Nitella). Most aquatic plants can, or prefer to, grow in the emersed form, and most only flower in that form. Many terrestrial plants can tolerate extended periods of inundation, and this is often part of the natural habitat of the plant where flooding is common. These plants (termed helophytes) tolerate extended periods of waterlogging around the roots and even complete submersion under flood waters. Growth rates of helophytes decrease significantly during these periods of complete submersion and if water levels do not recede the plant will ultimately decline and perish.[3]

• Aquatic animal
• Aquatic ecosystem
• Aquatic locomotion
• Aquatic mammal
• Aquatic plant
• Botany
• Plant community
• Raunkiær plant life-form
• Terrestrial animal
• Terrestrial
• Terrestrial ecosystem
• Terrestrial locomotion
• Wetland – Type of land area that is flooded or saturated with water
• Wetland indicator status

1. ^ "terrestrial". Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary. Merriam-Webster. Retrieved 2018-04-24. Archived 21 September 2017 at the Wayback Machine.
2. ^ "Aquatic & Terrestrial Plants". Sciencing. Leaf Group. Retrieved 2020-04-22.
3. ^ Brock, T. C. M.; van der Velde, G.; van de Steeg, H. M. (1987). "The effects of extreme water level fluctuations on the wetland vegetation of a nymphaeid-dominated oxbow lake in The Netherlands". Archiv für Hydrobiologie, Ergebnisse der Limnologie. 27. E. Schweizerbart: 57–73.