Human use of plants. The meaning of plants What flowering plants do people use?

• Plants release oxygen into the air, which the vast majority of living organisms (animals, plants, etc.) breathe.
• Reduces the amount of carbon dioxide in the air. Carbon dioxide is released during the respiration of living organisms. If there was too much of it, the animals would not be able to breathe.
• Plants maintain air humidity. Forests make the climate milder, weaken the wind, thanks to them moisture is retained in the soil, forests prevent the formation of ravines.
• Plants provide food for many animals and a habitat for their life.

The importance of plants for humans

Plants play a very important role in people's lives. Primarily they serve:

• food,
• feed for farm animals,
• building material,
• raw materials for production (paper, fabrics, etc.).

Plants that humans use for food usually have very ancient history. Many of them were cultivated at the dawn of civilization. Now there are many varieties of wheat, rye, corn, potatoes, beets, carrots, cabbage and many other plants. These plants are called cultivated.

Many plants are beautiful and have decorative value. They are specially grown in gardens and at home. They were also once wild, but were then domesticated. Examples ornamental plants: clematis, lavatera, rose.

Many plants have medicinal value both for humans and pets. A number of them are specially grown to produce medicines. Examples medicinal plants: plantain, marshmallow, lily of the valley, thermopsis, valerian. For example, cough medicine is prepared from thermopsis.

How modern people use plants, you will learn from this article.

How do people use plants?

Almost all plants are used by humans for their own purposes. The plant is used in food, medicine, for the production of goods, etc.

1. What plants do people use for food?

Human needs for food are, to one degree or another, provided by plants - either directly or through animals that also feed on plants. The diet of primitive people consisted of fruits and seeds, tubers and roots, young shoots and even whole plants.

What plants do people use for food?

The most important modern cultivated plants are:

• cereals - rice, wheat, corn, oats, rye and barley.
• starch-bearing plants - potatoes and bananas, sugar beets and sugar cane.
• legumes, as they contain a lot of plant proteins.
• plants with a lot of fat. These are rapeseed, rapeseed, sunflower and poppy.
• vitamin-rich plants, which include all vegetable and fruit plants.
• plants that have a stimulating effect are coffee and tea, tobacco and cocoa.

2. What plants are used in industry? These are cotton, wood, jute, rubber, cellulose, vegetable oils and fats, tannins, dyes and fibers.

• Linen. Serves as a raw material for the manufacture of fabrics, mainly for table and bed linen.
• Hemp. It is used to make canvas, ropes, thick threads, rope and burlap.
• Cotton. Is a source of cellulose. Cardboard, paper, artificial silk, varnishes, artificial wool, and viscose are made from it. The starting material is wood.
• Blueberry and lingonberry fruits, tea bush seeds and coffee tree, bark and heartwood. Tannins and dyes are produced.

3. What plants are used in medicine?

To make medicines, people use the following plants: plantain, St. John's wort, coltsfoot, calendula, celandine, and so on.

4. What flowering plants does a person use?

People plant flowers in flower beds, grow them in greenhouses, and give them to each other. They will add comfort to your home or workplace, decorate parks and flower beds, and give positive emotions.

What part of the plant does a person use?

If we take the overall use of plants in all of the above areas, then a person fully uses the plant. For example, he uses fruits or seeds for food, stems and leaves for making tannins or fabrics, and roots for making tinctures and medicines.

We hope that from this article you learned how people use the plant.

Currently, humanity continues to widely use plants for its needs. At the same time, the natural vegetation cover is gradually changing. Forest areas are decreasing, treeless spaces are increasing, and some plants that were once widespread on Earth are disappearing and not being restored. Although this process of destruction of the original natural vegetation is gradually progressing, there are still many plant species that continue to preserve a large economic importance for people's lives.

There are five main areas where people directly or indirectly use plants:
as food;
source of raw materials for industry;
as medicines;
for decorative purposes;
to preserve and improve the environment.

The nutritional value of plants is well known. As a rule, human food and animal feed contain parts containing reserve nutrients or the substances themselves, extracted in one way or another. The need for carbohydrates is mainly satisfied by starch- and sugar-containing plants. The role of sources of plant protein in the diet of humans and animals is performed mainly by some plants from the legume family. Fruits and seeds of many species are used to obtain vegetable oils. Spices and plants containing caffeine - tea and coffee - play a significant role in human nutrition.

Tea plantation. Photo: Jakub Michankow

A person receives from plants not only energy-rich substances, but also vitamins. We can include almost all fruit and vegetable plants as vitamin-rich plants.
Spices and spices play a significant role in our diet; all of them, with the exception of table salt, are of plant origin. The main part of the flavoring substances of spicy plants belongs to a large group essential oils, which are formed by plants in special cells or are secreted into special containers located inside the tissues, and later when they leave the plant body through glandular hairs or glandular cells. We are talking about easily evaporating, pleasant-smelling liquids, which are a mixture of alcohols, carbonic acids, esters and other substances. Taste also depends on organic acids, which play an important role in metabolism.

The technical use of plants and products from them is carried out in several main areas. The most widely used materials are wood and fibrous parts of plants. Wood is used in the manufacture of building and other structures, furniture, as well as in the production of paper. Dry distillation of wood makes it possible to obtain a significant amount of important organic substances, widely used in industry and in everyday life. In many countries, wood is one of the main types of fuel.

In world trade, a variety of colored woods are in great demand, used to produce furniture and decorative plywood. This is mahogany, such as mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla), found in South America; green tree (Ocotea roiaci), also found in South America; ebony (species of the genus Diospyros), supplied by countries in Africa and East Asia; teak tree (Tectona grandis) - inhabitant of the tropical forests of East Asia, etc.

Despite wide use synthetic fibers, plant fibers obtained from cotton (morphologically these are trichomes), flax, hemp and jute, preserved great importance in the production of many fabrics.

Many wild plants serve as a source of various aromatic substances, which are used as raw materials in the production of soap, perfumes, as well as products used in the food industry and medicine. The most valuable of them (besides the cultivated pink geranium, Kazanlak rose, clary sage, lemongrass, etc.) are numerous species of the families Apiaceae, Lamiaceae, Asteraceae (wormwood), etc., growing in different parts of the Earth.

Plants have been used for medicinal purposes for a very long time. IN folk medicine they make up the bulk medicines. In scientific medicine in the countries of the former USSR, approximately a third of the drugs used for treatment are obtained from plants. It is believed that with medicinal purposes The peoples of the world use at least 21,000 plant species (including mushrooms).

At least 1,000 species of plants are bred for ornamental purposes, either for their beautiful flowers or for their showy greenery.

The existence and normal functioning of all ecological systems of the biosphere, of which humans are a part, are entirely determined by plants.
Plants already used by humans or that may be used by humans in the future constitute plant resources. Plant resources are classified as renewable (if properly exploited) as opposed to, for example, non-renewable mineral resources. Most often, plant resources are divided into resources of natural flora (this includes all wild species) and resources of cultivated plants. In terms of volume and significance in the life of mankind, they differ significantly.

The introduction of plants into culture and thus the formation of additional plant resources is associated with the formation of the most ancient human civilizations. The existence of these civilizations could only be ensured by a certain “assortment” of cultivated plants that provided the required amount of plant proteins, fats and carbohydrates. The life of modern man and modern civilization are impossible without the widespread use of cultivated plants. Almost all cultivated plants, the number of which now reaches approximately 1,500 species, belong to the angiosperms. By the middle of the 20th century. cultivated plants occupied 1.5 billion hectares, i.e., about 10% of the entire land surface of the globe.

Today, man has a unique opportunity not only to use plants already invented by nature, but also to invent and create something new. We are talking about the genetic biotransformation of plants and the creation of transgenic plants with unique properties that are resistant to various factors.

What are transgenic plants used for? Of course, first of all, in order to preserve the harvest. Transgenic plants are generally resistant to either herbicides or insect pests. Up to 50% of all non-transgenic potatoes die from harmful insects, including the Colorado potato beetle. This is a significant blow to the economy and prices, which is why genetically modified soybeans, transgenic potatoes, and transgenic corn are being introduced and used in the United States and other developing countries of the world. Transgenic plants that are resistant to herbicides carry a gene taken from one of the bacterial species. This gene codes for a toxin that is used to spray non-transgenic plants, meaning essentially nothing changes. That we spray non-transgenic plants externally, that we introduced this gene, and it acts from the inside.

In addition to transgenic plants that are resistant to herbicides and traditional pests, there are plants with improved properties: increased vitamin content, increased amino acid content, altered fatty acid composition.
An example is rice with a high content of beta-carotene, which is converted into vitamin A in the human body. It is known that today in countries developing world a person does not get enough vitamin A. In extreme cases, this can lead to blindness. Therefore, the development of such organisms is relevant. Another example is the development of genetically modified carrots that have increased beta-carotene. These carrots are already successfully sold in American stores today.