Plantae     Ecuador, which only occupies 0.2 % of the planet's area but blessed by its tropical location and other important characteristics, like its altitudinal ranges and a climate devoid of winter conditions for the most parts, has a very diverse vegetation with more than 25 000 species of plants present in the country, which represents approximately 10% of all plants known in the world.   Ferns, horsetails and Club mosses (from left to lower right) were the first vascular plants to cover the land. In the Carboniferous Era ancestors of these plants covered the earth with immense forests. Club mosses grew trees of up to 40 meters. Those ancient forests laid down the oil and coal fields.   One of the most diverse in plants of its many bio-geographical regions are the tropical rainforests, where often 300 different species of trees are found in one hectare alone. Many of those tropical trees and palms reach heights of up to 30m and support by themselves a multitude of many other plants like epiphytes and vines. Some of them have medicinal value figured out by trial and error over thousand years by the indigenous people. Moving higher up the mountains you encounter another rich nature zone, the vegetation-dense cloudforests, which is especially diverse in Orchids and Bromeliads and many other flowering plants. There you also find a high variety of ferns and mosses. Trees abound but do not reach the immense heights of the lower tropical rainforests of the Amazon. Reaching the Inter-Andean valleys, we find more natural diversity but also a region, which was completely changed by man and where now many exotic plants are dominant. This holds also true for the agricultural rich coastal plains where imported fruits and crops took the place of the native tropical forest and changed completely the bio-zone. The higher we move up the less species per hectare you find but even the diversity in the high alpine region of the paramo of 4000m is amazing. You find there flowers like the colorful gentians and woody shrubs of the aster or composite families. Another very distinct characteristic of Ecuador's flora is its high percentage of endemic plants, which are by definition only found in Ecuador or even only in a particular region of the country, like a small and isolated valley. Those endemic plants represent 20% of all plants of mainland Ecuador and reaches a much higher percentage in Galapagos. The insular region of Galapagos is the poorest in species numbers with only 600 native and around 260 introduced plants by colonists.   Plants need light and grow accordingly. In forests trees grow tall to compete with other plants to gather the precious sunrays. Other plants sit on them for the same reason, to be near the sun. Those epiphytes might cover completely a tree (as seen in the photo to left). They do not take away nutrients from a host like parasites do, only use them as an elevated location. Epiphytes include a variety of plants, from old timers like mosses, ferns and club mosses to flowering plants like anthuriums, orchids and bromeliads. The overall green appearance of plants is due to their leaves, which are nature's power plants. They are efficient solar cells and convert sunlight into chemical energy.  A green pigment called chlorophyll is found in their chloroplasts achieving that amazing feat, which we call photosynthesis.   Worldwide only a small percentage of plants are cultivated by man for agricultural purposes but these few plants play a big role in the feeding of the ever-growing world population. When the Spaniards arrived on the American continent, a big exchange of food plants took place around the world. Old world crops like wheat and rice were introduced in the Americas and New World crops like corn and potatoes were exported. But not only crops but also fruits were interchanged, with the banana and coffee coming to tropical America and the avocado and pineapple moving from here to other parts of the planet. Also the settlers brought with them their favorite flowers, which they introduced into a new system. Trees like the eucalyptus and pines were imported and presently are the dominant ones in the Andean valleys, having replaced the native forest, which only exists in a few pockets but otherwise had to yield to the imported species and cultivated fields and pastures.   FLOWERS are the reproductive organs of seed bearing plants. They consist of four parts or whorls of sexual structures which derived from modified leaves. In this passionflower, locally called taxo (its pulp is used for fruit juice) we can clearly appreciate that. The outermost whorl (also called the calyx) are the sepals (the lower 5 pink leaves in this example) which covers the whole flower when it is closed. Usually they are green but in this case (and in orchids and some others) they are brightly colored like the petals (the upper 5 pink ones). The function of the corolla (all the petals together) is to attract pollinators. In flowering plants like grasses which are wind pollinated the petals are often tiny and inconspicuous. Showy and large petals are costly to produce and if not needed energy will be saved. Next come the male sex organs the stamens. Here five reddish filaments (stalks) with yellow anthers on top arise from the base of the flower. The anthers hold the precious pollen containing the male sex cells. In the center sit the female parts called the pistils. Here we have three of them. The green sticky stigmas sit on top of the styles (stalks) which lead to the ovary located at the base of the flower (not observable here). The ovary have one or in the case of passionflowers several ovules, where the female eggs sit. After fertilization the ovules turn into seeds and the ovary becomes the fruit.

Natural History   Plants arose among single-celled photosynthesizing green algae. Some developed multi-cellular structures, some remained uni-celllular. All this occurred still in water and a major evolutionary step was the transition to land by one adventurous plant / algae lineage some 450 million years ago. The major hurdle was how to prevent desiccation. Plants adapted by covering its surface by a cuticle, which prevents water loss through the tissues. To enable gas exchanges stomatas which can open and close, were also formed. It also seems that mycorrhiza, a fungi which lives symbiotically at the roots and help with the uptake of minerals were present from the beginning and played an important role in helping to conquer this new  land environment. The first plants resembled our nonvascular mosses, liverworts and hornworts, which are considered primitive as they still have to live in wet conditions and cannot prosper in completely dry conditions. Another important step was the emergence of the spore, which can be carried by wind to propagate far away from the mother plant. With that the greening of the planet could begin in earnest. To be able to grow in size a vascular system developed among some of the before mentioned plants. It is needed to carry efficiently water and minerals up from the roots and photosynthetic products down from the leaves. The first vascular plants to achieve that and which were dominant in the Carboniferous era were ferns, club mosses and horsetails. Many of those reached large sizes and laid down the fossil fuels, on which modern humans depend on so much these days. Plants became also essential for the oxygen in the atmosphere on which all air breathing animals depend. The next important step in plant's evolution was the seed. The cycads, ginkgos, conifers and gnetae are gymnosperms (naked seeds) where the ovule (unfertilized egg) on female sex organs is not covered and the male pollen can fertilize it directly. In angiosperms or flowering plants the ovule became enveloped in protective tissues and the pollen can only reach it through developing a pollen tube. Flowers were thus the last to arrive in the evolutionary process coming on the scene some 130 million years ago. They however completely changed the world and paved the way for many animals to come (e.g. grasses were a pre-requisite for big herbivores). Among the flowers monocots were the latest to evolve and are considered the most advanced flowers, having evolved from simple aquatic dicots.    Classification of Plantae   There are 260 000 species of plants known worldwide but the estimate goes well into the 300 000's as many are not yet classified. They are divided into two mayor phyla, the non-vascular plants with 16 00 species and the rest are vascular ones. Plants are also classified as terrestrial (rooted in the soil), epiphytes (airplants sitting on trees) and aquatic (living in water).    Nonvascular Plants    Hepatophyta liverworts  Bryophyta mosses  Anthocerophyta hornworts    Vascular Plants    Lycophyta club mosses  Sphenophyta horsetails  Pterophyta ferns  Psilophyta whisk ferns  Gymnosperm  Cycadophyta cycads  Ginkgophyta ginkgo  Coniferophyta conifers  Gnetophyta gnetae  Angiosperms  Anthophyta flowering plants         Orders of ANGIOSPERMS Magnoliopsida or Dicots (170 000 species) Magnoliiflorae magnolias, annona, asarum Nymphaeiflorae pepper, cabomba, anemopsis Ranunculiflorae ranunculus, papaver, nandina Caryophylliflorae phytolacca, opuntia, cactus, portulaca Polygoniflorae antigonon, fallopia, rheum Theiflorae dillenia, paeonia, camellia Malviflorae tilia, ceiba, malva, cannabis Violiflorae violets, passion fruit, begonia, alyssum Corniflorae erica, garrya, maccleania Araliiflorae apium, ferula Primuliflorae primula, myrsine, halesia Rosiflorae roses, tree nuts, crassula, rubus Fabiflorae mimosa, tamarind, lotus Proteiflorae grevillea, macadamia, protea Myrtiflorae callistemon, melastoma, lythrum Santaliflorae santalum, celastrus, vitis Rutiflorae line seed, geranium, pelargonium, acer Gentianiflorae gentian, vinca, asclepias, jasmin, olea Solaniflorae solana, petunia, brugmansia, cordia Lamiiflorae verbena, calceolaria, scrophularia, lantana Asteriflorae composites, dahlia, espeletia, helianthus   Liliopsida or Monocots (50 000 species) Liliiflorae orchids, lilies, irises, agaves, amaryllis Ariflorae arum, calla, philodendron, anthurium Alismatiflorae alisma, butomus, aponogeton Bromeliiflorae bromeliads, pine apple, puya Zingiberiflorae banana, heliconias, jenigbre, canna, thalia Commeliniflorae grass, elegia, callisia Areciflorae palm, areca, butia, calamus Pandaniflorae pandanus    Biologically Speaking   Plants make up their own kingdom and are multi-cellular eukaryotes although some uni-cellular forms are also included. Their most important cell characteristics are their rigid cell walls made of cellulose and green organelles called chloroplasts. Chloroplasts have molecules of chlorophyll in them which absorb light and then through a process called photosynthesis become converted to chemical energy. As plants are thus able to produce their own food (autotrophs) they are the basis of our food web and all animals depend on them. The major organs of plants are roots, stems and leaves. Roots anchor the plant and absorb much needed water and minerals, often  with the help of micorrhizal fungi. Stems are the main plant structures which holds everything up and distributes the necessary elements. Leaves are the primary photosynthetic organs of the plant. The abundance of chlorophyll in their cells give them their green color.    Recommended Books (used in research)  FLORA DEL ECUADOR  by Erwin Patzelt  FLOWERING PLANTS OF The GALAPAGOS   by Conley K. McMullen  BOTANICA  Das ABC der Pflanzen