This lush green landscape is thickly carpeted with trees and a myriad of other plants. Much of Earth’s land is dominated by plants. Yet compared to our active existence as animals, plants are—literally—rooted to the ground. Their sedentary lives may seem less interesting than the active lives of animals, but plants are very busy doing extremely important work. All plants are chemical factories. Each year, they transform huge amounts of carbon (from carbon dioxide) into food for themselves and virtually all other land organisms.

Plants are complex organisms that carry out complex tasks. But unlike animals, they don’t have nerves, bones, or muscles to do their work. How do plants do it? Read on to find out.

Introduction: Like animals, plants have organs that are specialized to carry out complex functions. An organ is a structure composed of more than one type of tissue. A tissue, in turn, is a group of cells of the same kind that do the same job. In this lesson, you will read about the tissues that do the important work of plants. The cells that make up plant tissues are described first.

 

CK-12 Foundation, Biology. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/