As any agriculturist will tell you, there are two main classes of plants: plants proper, which take a lot of care and feeding, to keep them alive, and weeds (plants improper) which thrive without any care at all, even under adverse conditions. Here we look at them in a bit more detail.
Having a common ancestor, Plants have a lot of similarities with
Animals and Fungus. The major difference is that, thanks to Cyanobacteria,
plants can use sunlight to split carbon dioxide into carbon and oxygen.
The carbon is used to build plant cells, while the oxygen is released
into the atmosphere.
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EukaryotesFor over 2 billion years, life consisted of Bacteria and Archaea, both microscopic in size. A little over 2 billion years ago, an Archaea cell got it's DNA tangled up with that of a bacterium. This Chimera, composed of two unrelated entities, continued to absorb alien DNA and evolve new functions and grow larger and larger. An extremely important event, was when these developing cells were infected with a (probably) parasitic bacteria. This bacteria, dependant on the cell, evolved into very important symbiotes, Mitochondria, that still maintain their own separate DNA within the Eukaryote cells. A little less than 2 billion years ago, some Eukaryotes were also infested with a Cyanobacteria. the only entity that can efficiently use sunlight to break Carbon Dioxide into Carbon and Oxygen. These Cyanobacteria, like the Mitochondria, evolved into extremely important symbiotes called Chloroplasts. This was the divide between the Plant lineage and the Animal / Fungus lineage. About 1.25 billion years ago, Eukariots of both Plant and Animal lineages began to adopt sexual reproduction, which resulted in a great acceleration of evolution. This made possible very complex multi-cellular entities, such as Trees, Zucchinis, People and Mushrooms. Kinds of PlantsThe first entities in the very complex plant lineage were single celled, and there are a vast number of these still alive and thriving. They are not, however, of culinary interest, but the multi-cellular plants are what makes our lives possible. Here we list the plants that are of culinary interest. The table for Archaeplastida is listed in order of evolution. Each entry links to a detail page listing edible varieties.
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