Plants come in many different sizes, shapes, and textures. Based on their physical features, they can be classified into different groups such as trees, shrubs, herbs, grasses, climbers, and creepers.
Trees have a big trunk of wood and many branches that spread out with leaves on them. Trees have roots that go deep down into the soil.
Examples of Trees:
Shrubs are medium-sized plants with several woody stems and branches growing close to the ground. They do not have a single big trunk like a tree, but are bushy-looking.
Examples of Shrubs:
Do you know? The pulses (dal) we eat — such as toor (pigeon peas), masoor (red lentils), moong (green gram), and urad (black gram) — are all seeds of shrubs.
Herbs are smaller plants with soft, tender, and green stems that do not become woody.
Examples of Herbs:
Grasses are also types of herbs. The leaves of grasses are thin and flat, and their stems are hollow.
Do you know? The grains we eat — such as paddy (rice), wheat, bajra, jowar, and ragi — are seeds of large grasses! Sugarcane and bamboo are also tall grasses. Bamboo is a special kind of grass that stays alive longer than just a year.
Climbers and Creepers have thin and flexible stems and cannot stand up by themselves.
A plant consists of several distinct parts, each serving a specific function. Using a tomato plant as an example, the main parts include:
Do you know?
Stand in groups next to any tree or shrub near your school. Look around and spot how many kinds of trees, shrubs, herbs, grasses, climbers, or creepers you can identify.
Choose a plant (preferably a shrub or tree) to make friends with. Name it, water it, and protect it. Observe its leaves, flowers, and fruits over time, noting changes in color, shape, and size.
Observe, draw, and describe the leaves in your surroundings. Notice how different leaves have unique smells (e.g., tulsi, coriander, curry leaves, mint, lemon grass, mango). Try blindfolding yourself to see if you can recognize different fruits (like mango, pineapple, jackfruit, guava, jamun) by their smell alone.
Bark is the hard outer covering of a tree trunk. Create a bark rubbing by pressing a sheet of paper against the bark and gently rubbing a crayon or pencil over it. Compare different bark patterns with your friends.