What are the adaptations of the leaves of plants?

Answer 1

Adaptations occur when beneficial mutations occur... If the change over time is good, those mutations - genetic changes, are retained and passed on to later generations.

- Consider leaves that have oily coatings on them and reduce evaporation, like desert plants.
- Consider leaves with spikey-points on them to reduce the likelyhood that an insect won't eat the entire leaf.
- Consider how some saps in a leaf are sour-tasting and discourage an insect from eating it.
- Consider how flexible some leaves are that live near hurricane-prone regions... Like the Palm family of trees. They wouldn't do very well if they were structured like a maple tree, for example - with stiff branches.

Plants evolved from "primitive" life forms (probably algaes) and all the variations that have occured under so many environmental conditions in some way have resulted in adaptations. I would say that there isn't a single structure in any plant (the leaf included) that exists, past or present, that isn't an adaptation of some type or another.

If a plant is extinct, the environmental stresses were too great for it to adapt to the new conditions - whether water, light, predators, etc...

Pick a structure of a plant, any structure, and it reflects some type of adaptation at some time during its evolution into its present form. Rarely is some characteristic retained that doesn't reflect some adaptation.

Does that answer your question?
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(By the way: There are some really interesting thoughts that reflect the size of seeds with the animals that probably ate the fruit/vegetable.
It is thought that the avocado and seed were eaten by dinosaurs... The size of the pit wasn't important to a huge animal like they were, and the oily meat would have helped the seed pass through the dino's digestive system... and then eliminated, pooped out whole and in a nice pile of fertilizer!!

I recall reading some time ago that the peach and plum all evolved around the same time as when the dinosaurs were around and so evolved in similar fashion - hard, large, and surrounded by thick fruity-meat. The acidity would promote elimination, too, I suppose.

It would be interesting to find out why the banana and kiwi seeds are so small.)

Answer 2

It is called Photosynthesis.

Answer 3

here is a web page that might help you with this question......

http://www.stoller-eser.com/trial/colorbook/leaves.html