Herbaceous plants

Herbaceous plants in the forests of our country are found much more often than shrubs and trees combined. The length of their stem, as a rule, is small, although there are rather high ones - banana, reeds, corn, etc.

A feature that characterizes herbaceous plants is a soft or juicy overhead stem. There is an opinion that such types of grass are the result of the evolution of tree representatives of the flora. Scientists came to this conclusion by comparing their anatomical structure with the anatomical structure of the one-year-old branches of related tree species.

Herbaceous plants by the term of existence are divided into several types: annual, biennial and perennial.

One year includes those whose entire life span is one period of vegetation, i.e. One season, which is favorable for their growth. As a rule, the seeds of such plants sprout in the spring, then they reach their normal size, bloom, bear fruit, and then completely die. This millet, cucumber, tomato, corn, blooming aster, petunia, wild quinoa, cornflower, mocryca, etc.

Biennial herbaceous plants have two periods of vegetation: the first form their vegetative organs, after which the leaves die, and the roots remain, and in the second year shoots grow from the buds , the plant fructifies, and then perishes. This is known to us beets, cabbage, carrots, which alone can not tolerate the cold, so usually truck farmers dig them out and store them in basements or cellars so that in the spring they can plant the seeds selected in advance. Wild biennials are burdock, thistle, caraway, chicory.

However, the vast majority of known species are perennial herbaceous plants, many of which do not reach the flowering period in either the first or even the second year of their life, and five to ten years after the germination of the seed. The period of flowering and fruiting is repeated to twenty years. Annually, new ground shoots form from the kidneys, which by the end of the vegetation die off, however, not entirely: only the upper part dies, while what remains at the level of the soil or under it remains. Sometimes shoots spread out on the ground, they press against it covered with plant remains.

Almost all herbaceous plants of the forest are perennial, many of which retain their place for a long time, but due to their long roots and terrestrial shoots, they spread in different directions, capturing new habitats.

This species is poorly propagated by seeds, since in the forest the soil is almost always covered with a thick layer of fallen pine needles or leaves, which makes germination difficult, and such a litter is not an obstacle to the vegetative mode of reproduction.

In the forest, many kinds of winter-green grass grow, which reliably hide under a thick layer of snow. They are shade-tolerant and tolerate the absence of light well.

However, the forest is not the only habitat for perennial herbaceous plants. Many of them perfectly grow and in meadows, glades, in general in any open place. Here they tend to grow much more luxuriantly, and they blossom and bear fruit much more abundantly.

Herbaceous forest plants are always very sensitive to soil conditions: the presence of nutrients and moisture, so they can be called a kind of indicator of the state of forest land. That is why many of them are closely related to their distribution to the type of forest: some grow among deciduous trees, others grow among coniferous trees.

However, it is worth mentioning the fact that among grassy plants there are also those that have a very wide range of distribution, independent of the type of soil. These are the so-called indifferent plants.