How plants have evolved to live on Earth – Botanical tour 10.5.
A short botanical tour that will guide you through some of the fascinating stories of the life of plants.
We totally rely on plants for our survival, not just for all our food, but a livable planet, and a breathable atmosphere itself.
Did you know that more than 400,000 different plants are found all around Earth, on both land and in the water?
Unlike us, where we can move into the shade and take a cooling drink, or put a coat on if we are cold, plants are rooted in just one place. How do they cope with growing in some of the harshest and most difficult places imaginable, such as deserts, the arctic, mountain tops, rain forests, or as here in Finland, where for half the year they have to battle with frozen soils, and heavy snow, or for the other half of the year, the blazing sun and often a lack of water.
Yet they seem to thrive and reproduce successfully. How do they do it?
Did you know that most plants have easily identifiable adaptations to Earth’s varied environments? Did you know also that besides coping with Earth’s widely changing climates, plants have found ingenious ways to attract insects, birds, bats and mammals to pollinate their flowers and transport their seeds, so they have successful offspring. Did you know that our pine tree needles have an amazing ability to condense water from the air, so the trees can lose heat, and much needed water can trickle down to their roots through the summer.
Hear some of these remarkable stories of the life of plants from your botanical guide David Stokes. Learn and identify how some of your favourite plants have evolved to survive and thrive on our precious green and blue planet.
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About your guide David Stokes
David has been involved professionally with plants for over fifty years. He started his career as a student at the world famous Royal Horticultural Society’s Garden at Wisley, in the UK, learning about the world’s flora.
Since then, he has worked as a head gardener in one of the most beautiful gardens of south-west England, before moving on to the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew in London.
Later he became a university lecturer in England, teaching BSc Horticulture.
In 2009 he moved to Finland to take up teaching posts at Livia College in Piikkiö, as well as AMK, teaching horticulture and English, as well as occasional teaching for Turku, Aalto and Helsinki universities on horticulture and landscape.
latterly he has taken up a horticultural consultancy and writing career as well as still lecturing in his favourite subject, plants!