Plants clear their wastes
Excretion in plants.
Plants and wastes
Animals have special organs for wastes. Plants use strategies that are very different.
Do you think plants have waste products that need to be dealt with?
What this lesson covers
The idea
Plants get rid of oxygen through gas exchange and excess water by transpiration, store other wastes in cell vacuoles, in leaves that fall off, or as resins and gums in old xylem, and excrete some into the soil.
Plants and wastes
Animals have special organs for wastes. Plants use strategies that are very different.
Do you think plants have waste products that need to be dealt with?
- Yes, and they deal with them in other ways
- No, they make no waste
- They use kidneys like animals
How plants get rid of waste
Sort each item by how the plant deals with it.
Different strategies
Plants use very different ways of excretion from animals. Oxygen itself can be thought of as a waste product of photosynthesis, and it leaves by gas exchange. Excess water leaves by transpiration. Many tissues of a plant are dead cells and the plant can lose parts such as leaves, so wastes can be stored in vacuoles, in leaves that fall off, or as resins and gums in old xylem. Some wastes are excreted into the soil.
Plants get rid of oxygen through gas exchange and excess water by transpiration, store other wastes in cell vacuoles, in leaves that fall off, or as resins and gums in old xylem, and excrete some into the soil.
Notes
Plants lose oxygen by gas exchange and excess water by transpiration, store wastes in vacuoles, falling leaves, or resins and gums in old xylem, and excrete some into the soil.
Check yourself
Which gas can be thought of as a waste product of photosynthesis?
How do plants get rid of excess water?
Which of these is a way in which plants store wastes?
What are the resins and gums that plants use as waste stores found in?
- Carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is a raw material for photosynthesis.
- Oxygen — correct. Yes!
- Nitrogen. Nitrogen is taken up from the soil to make proteins; it is not the waste gas of photosynthesis.
- By storing it in resins. Resins and gums are waste products stored especially in old xylem.
- By excreting it through kidneys. Plants have strategies very different from those of animals; excess water is lost by transpiration.
- By transpiration — correct. Yes!
- In leaves that fall off — correct. Yes!
- In the urinary bladder. The urinary bladder belongs to the human excretory system.
- In the nephrons. Nephrons are the filtration units of the kidneys.
- In the young stomata. Stomata are tiny pores for gas exchange.
- Especially in old xylem — correct. Yes!
- In the Bowman's capsule. Bowman's capsule is part of the nephron in the kidney.