 The green kingdom itself is marvelous. Plants have an essentially unique ability to capture the energy of the sun and use it to power a chemical reaction in their cells which combines water and carbon dioxide to produce sugars and proteins – food – while releasing oxygen. This is the process we call photosynthesis. Plants can perform this alchemy because at some time in their ancestral history one type of unicellular organism co-opted another, photosynthesizing cyano-bacteria, and within the new host this became a chloroplast possessing the chemical molecule chlorophyll, which conducts the photosynthetic reaction. Since chlorophyll is a green pigment, plant life is overwhelmingly this hue.

Through periods of time measured in immense geological epochs, all the different evolving forms of plant life proved to be much more than passive passengers on the revolving planet. They are now considered to be one of the active forces that have customized the atmosphere and surface of the Earth by their shaping and reprocessing of its fresh water and minerals, helping to make it more habitable for us.

With flowers came color. Green was now embellished with a dazzling array of tints. This was not for our delectation. Long before our love affair with them, flowering plants co-evolved with other organisms to assist with the transfer of pollen, usually from one plant to another, for fertilization. While plants seem to have escaped the kinds of mass extinctions that saw the fall of the dinosaurs and the rise of the mammals, there have been important shifts in the world’s plant populations. As the continental plates crunched more or less into their current positions and temperatures subsequently rose and fell to produce the successive ice ages of more recent geological time, the grasses appeared to be winners and the forests losers, while arid land plants increased. 

BB001
Composed, arranged, recorded and
mixed by Burstbot (Marco Fierro)
Produced by Marco Fierro
Artwork by Marco Fierro
Illustrations by Marco Fierro
Mastered by Marco Fierro. 

Burstbot:
http://www.burstbot.com

Pollen Grains

Molecular Language

Kukicha

Tints

Epiphyte

Dicotyledonous

Orchis

Inflorescence

Seaweed

Papaver Rhoeas

Orchis

burstbot

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