A terrestrial plant is a
plant
Plants are the eukaryotes that form the Kingdom (biology), kingdom Plantae; they are predominantly Photosynthesis, photosynthetic. This means that they obtain their energy from sunlight, using chloroplasts derived from endosymbiosis with c ...
that grows on, in or from
land
Land, also known as dry land, ground, or earth, is the solid terrestrial surface of Earth not submerged by the ocean or another body of water. It makes up 29.2% of Earth's surface and includes all continents and islands. Earth's land sur ...
. Other types of plants are
aquatic (living in or on water),
semiaquatic (living at edge or seasonally in water),
epiphytic
An epiphyte is a plant or plant-like organism that grows on the surface of another plant and derives its moisture and nutrients from the air, rain, water (in marine environments) or from debris accumulating around it. The plants on which epiphyt ...
(living on other plants), and
lithophytic (living in or on rocks).
The distinction between aquatic and terrestrial plants is often blurred because many terrestrial plants are able to tolerate periodic submersion and many aquatic species have both
submersed and
emersed forms.
There are relatively few obligate submersed aquatic plants (species that cannot tolerate emersion for even relatively short periods), but some examples include members of
Hydrocharitaceae and
Cabombaceae, ''
Ceratophyllum
''Ceratophyllum'' is a cosmopolitan distribution, cosmopolitan genus of flowering plants commonly found in ponds, marshes, and quiet streams in tropical and in temperate regions. It is the only extant taxon, extant genus in the family Ceratophyll ...
'', and ''
Aldrovanda'', and most macroalgae (e.g. ''
Chara'' and ''
Nitella''). Most aquatic plants can, or prefer to, grow in the emersed form, and most only flower in that form. Many terrestrial plants can tolerate extended periods of inundation, and this is often part of the natural habitat of the plant where flooding is common. These plants (termed
helophytes
Aquatic plants, also referred to as hydrophytes, are vascular plants and non-vascular plants that have adapted to live in aquatic environments ( saltwater or freshwater). In lakes, rivers and wetlands, aquatic vegetations provide cover for aqua ...
) tolerate extended periods of waterlogging around the roots and even complete submersion under flood waters. Growth rates of helophytes decrease significantly during these periods of complete submersion and if water levels do not recede the plant will ultimately decline and perish.
See also
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Aquatic animal
An aquatic animal is any animal, whether vertebrate or invertebrate, that lives in a body of water for all or most of its lifetime. Aquatic animals generally conduct gas exchange in water by extracting dissolved oxygen via specialised respirato ...
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Aquatic ecosystem
An aquatic ecosystem is an ecosystem found in and around a body of water, in contrast to land-based terrestrial ecosystems. Aquatic ecosystems contain communities of organisms—aquatic life—that are dependent on each other and on their environ ...
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Aquatic locomotion
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Aquatic mammal
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Aquatic plant
Aquatic plants, also referred to as hydrophytes, are vascular plants and Non-vascular plant, non-vascular plants that have adapted to live in aquatic ecosystem, aquatic environments (marine ecosystem, saltwater or freshwater ecosystem, freshwater ...
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Botany
Botany, also called plant science, is the branch of natural science and biology studying plants, especially Plant anatomy, their anatomy, Plant taxonomy, taxonomy, and Plant ecology, ecology. A botanist or plant scientist is a scientist who s ...
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Plant community
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Raunkiær plant life-form
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Terrestrial animal
Terrestrial animals are animals that live predominantly or entirely on land (e.g. cats, chickens, ants, most spiders), as compared with aquatic animals, which live predominantly or entirely in the water (e.g. fish, lobsters, octopuses), ...
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Terrestrial
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Terrestrial ecosystem
Terrestrial ecosystems are ecosystems that are found on land. Examples include tundra, taiga, temperate deciduous forest, tropical rain forest, grassland, deserts.
Terrestrial ecosystems differ from aquatic ecosystems by the predominant presen ...
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Terrestrial locomotion
Terrestrial locomotion has evolution, evolved as animals adapted from ecoregion#Marine, aquatic to ecoregion#Terrestrial, terrestrial environments. Animal locomotion, Locomotion on land raises different problems than that in water, with reduced f ...
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Wetland indicator status
References
{{Reflist
Plants by habitat