Course: HRT 125 Plants and Society

Reading and Multimedia Assignments

Reading Assignments
Reading Assignment

“How plants changed the world” by Boundless, CC BY SA 3.0

The evolution of plants resulted in increasing levels of complexity,
during which humans evolved from hunter-gatherer to farming lifestyle.

Plant Seeds

Seed plants began to be domesticated by humans about 10,000 years ago. The picture to the right is of flax seeds. Flax was domesticated early for human use.

- Seed plants originated 360 million years ago and dramatically changed the evolutionary course of plants.
- Seeds are embryos; each is covered with a protective coat and contains a food supply to nourish the embryo. The seed is detachable, allowing for dispersal from the parent plant.
- Several species of seed plants have been cultivated by humans for about the last 12,000 years. These include figs, wheat, maize, and rice. They contributed to the settlement of early human populations and their transformation from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle.

Since the seed coat protects the embryos of seed plants, during seed dispersal this protection can significantly increase the probability that a seed will survive to germination, even if environmental conditions are temporarily unsuitable.

Terms | Definitions
angiosperm | A plant whose ovules are enclosed in an ovary.
embryo | A rudimentary plant contained in the seed.
evolution | The change in the genetic composition of a population over successive generations.
seed | A fertilized ovule, containing an embryonic plant.