Plants are the eukaryotes that form the kingdom Plantae; they are predominantly photosynthetic. This means that they obtain their energy from sunlight, using chloroplasts derived from endosymbiosis with cyanobacteria to produce sugars from carbon dioxide and water, using the green pigment chlorophyll. Exceptions are parasitic plants that have lost the genes for chlorophyll and photosynthesis, and obtain their energy from other plants or fungi.

Historically, as in Aristotle's biology, the plant kingdom encompassed all living things that were not animals, and included algae and fungi. Definitions have narrowed since then; current definitions exclude the fungi and some of the algae. By the definition used in this article, plants form the clade Viridiplantae (green plants), which consists of the green algae and the embryophytes or land plants (hornworts, liverworts, mosses, lycophytes, ferns, conifers and other gymnosperms, and flowering plants). A definition based on genomes includes the Viridiplantae, along with the red algae and the glaucophytes, in the clade Archaeplastida.

There are about 380,000 known species of plants, of which the majority, some 260,000, produce seeds. They range in size from single cells to the tallest trees. Green plants provide a substantial proportion of the world's molecular oxygen; the sugars they create supply the energy for most of Earth's ecosystems and other organisms, including animals, either consume plants directly or rely on organisms which do so.

Grain, fruit, and vegetables are basic human foods and have been domesticated for millennia. People use plants for many purposes, such as building materials, ornaments, writing materials, and, in great variety, for medicines. The scientific study of plants is known as botany, a branch of biology.

Definition

Taxonomic history

All living things were traditionally placed into one of two groups, plants and animals. This classification dates from Aristotle (384–322 BC), who distinguished different levels of beings in his biology,^[5] based on whether living things had a "sensitive soul" or like plants only a "vegetative soul".^[6] Theophrastus, Aristotle's student, continued his work in plant taxonomy and classification.^[7] Much later, Linnaeus (1707–1778) created the basis of the modern system of scientific classification, but retained the animal and plant kingdoms, naming the plant kingdom the Vegetabilia.^[7]

Alternative concepts

When the name Plantae or plant is applied to a specific group of organisms or taxa, it usually refers to one of four concepts. From least to most inclusive, these four groupings are:

Evolution

Diversity

There are about 382,000 accepted species of plants,^[15] of which the great majority, some 283,000, produce seeds.^[16] The table below shows some species count estimates of different green plant (Viridiplantae) divisions. About 85–90% of all plants are flowering plants. Several projects are currently attempting to collect records on all plant species in online databases, e.g. the World Flora Online.^[15][17]

Plants range in scale from single-celled organisms such as desmids (from 10 micrometres across) and picozoa (less than 3 micrometres across),^[18][19] to the largest trees (megaflora) such as the conifer Sequoia sempervirens (up to 380 feet (120 m) tall ) and the angiosperm Eucalyptus regnans (up to 325 feet (99 m) tall ).^[20]