Homework help please for my daughter please!?

Question

Which trees & plants don't lose their leaves in winter & why is this?

Yes I know they are called evergreen but can anybody name anything other than a xmas tree please.

Thank you to most of you. She's been searching the net all afternoon & the information she finds tends to be far too scientific & complex for an 11 year old. Or it's businesses trying to sell trees. We'll keep trying, lol.

Answer 1

(Christmas trees)
Holly
Ivy
Pines
Grass!
Firs
Conifers
Garrya elliptica
Japonica
'Silver Queen'
Viburnam
Camellia
Various others


I think it's to do with having more chance to soak up the sun, and the pay-off, as it were, is that the leaves have to be smaller in order not to be damaged by the cold.

Hope this helps!

Answer 2

The further north you go, the more conifers/evergreen trees you will come across. By the time you get to, say, north Siberia, you wil not find any broad leaf trees at all, because they cannot survive the cold, even by shedding their leaves for the winter.

In simple terms there are two types of trees in the world, conifers and broad-leaf or deciduous trees. Conifers have seeds that develop inside of cones. Most often conifers have needle-shaped leaves and are evergreen; meaning they don’t loose all their leaves each year and are green all year round. Broadleaf trees usually have broad flat leaves and loose all their leaves each year.

Some trees with broad-bladed leaves lose their leaves in the winter because the trees has a rest period during the cold weather, and the leaves are not needed for the production of food. These trees are called deciduous trees-from the Latin "decidere" which means to fall. They drop their leaves in temperate or cold climates, but remain evergreen in the tropics, where it never gets cold enough for them to need to shed their leaves. Global warming has caused the trees in the UK to lose their leaves later recently.

Most deciduous trees grow in the mild, temperate regions of the earth where the summers are warm and the winters cool, and rain falls throughout the year. Some also grow in tropical regions, and a few survive in the more sheltered places in the cold north among the the coniferous trees.

The fall of the leaves is brought about by the formation of a weak area (called the abscission layer) at the base of the leaf stalk (or petiole). Before the leaves fall, the trees take back some of the food stored in the leaves. Chemical changes take place. The result is the brilliant autumn colors of the leaves.

Scientists can only guess, but they think that the shortening days in autumn have something to do with the formation of the abscission layer. As the hours of daylight lessen a zone of cells across the base of a leaf stalk softens until the leaf falls. A healing layer then forms on the stem and closes the wound. A leaf scar remains, which may be easily noticeable on winter twigs and help in identifying a tree (for instance, the horse chestnut "conker" tree has scars shaped like horses hoof prints)

In the spring the trees grow new leaves and the cycle of nourishment begins again.

Conifers are cone-shaped, whereas broad-leaf trees are more 'mushroom' shaped. Broad leaf trees need the sunshine to get enough nourishment through the leaves to survive the winter, but conifers need to withstand gales and snows in winter, so they have a shape that gives them a better chance against the harsh weather. They are also much better than broad-leaf trees at drawing up water from the soil, even though their water systems are much shorter (they have a better valve system).

Answer 3

Deciduous trees lose there leaves in winter, it is a way of conserving energy they don't have to feed the leaves plus the leaves around the base produce a compost.

Evergreens don't but I am not sure why, or what other method they use, coniferous trees have thin leaves needles which don't loose at a lot of water but holly doesn't although that is waxier than other leaves

Answer 4

In areas where there is a reason for being deciduous (e.g. a cold season or dry season), being evergreen is usually an adaptation to low nutrient levels. Deciduous trees lose nutrients whenever they lose their leaves, and they must replenish these nutrients from the soil to build new leaves. When few nutrients are available, evergreen plants have an advantage. In warmer areas, species such as some pines and cypresses grow on poor soils and disturbed ground. In Rhododendron, a genus with many broadleaf evergreens, several species grow in mature forests but are usually found on highly acidic soil where the nutrients are less available to plants. In taiga or boreal forests, it is too cold for the organic matter in the soil to decay rapidly, so the nutrients in the soil are less easily available to plants, thus favouring evergreens.

Answer 5

Conifers don't lose their needles because the shape and waxy texture of the needles help the tree conserve water through the winter where trees with leaves have to drop their leaves in order to do the same thing. And, one other thing-conifers can pull water from the ground during the winter where deciduous trees cannot.

Answer 6

in the autumn,leaves from deciduos trees dry out and become brittle and brown - so i would assume that the cold and the will have something to do with why - oak, lime, horse chesnut, plane trees are examples - evergreen trees don't lose their leaves - examples, fir tress like a christmas tree - spruce, yew, ivy, holly are examples of evegreen trees - hope this helps - maybe think about cactus too and the aloe vera plant!!?

Answer 7

Most of the tropical rain forests are evergreen too.

A better question might be - why do some trees lose their leaves. (An adaption to cold or dry seasons).

Then, where there are cold and dry seasons, why do some trees keep their leaves ? Usually because they have thin leaves not broad leaves.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evergreen

Answer 8

the yew tree does not loose its leave and stays green all winter, you also have hebbies which are small bushes and don't change colour, there is also lalandi ( i think that is how you spell it ) which is most commonly used in hedging. hope this helps good luck to your daughter with her home work. you could type in evergreen trees into your Internet search and see what you can find .

Answer 9

Fir trees or evergreen conifers...I believe it is either because they don't need as much sunlight because their leaves are smaller, allowing them to strive in the winter, or that they don't need as much water, also because they have extremely small leaves. It's one of those i think, but I can't really remember.

For a good answer, I would try wikipedia.

Answer 10

Evergreens. Because they're EVERGREEN! Fir trees etc. Because they just do. Deciduous trees lose their leaves in winter, but evergreens don't.