Cutting (plant)

Plant cutting, also known as striking or cloning, is a technique for vegetatively (asexually) propagating plants in which a piece of the stem or root of the source plant is placed in a suitable medium such as moist soil, potting mix, coir or rock wool. The cutting produces new roots, stems, or both, and thus becomes a new plant independent of the parent.

Technique

Typically, striking is a simple process in which a small amount of the parent plant is removed. This removed piece, called the cutting, is then encouraged to grow as an independent plant.

Since most plant cuttings will have no root system of their own, they are likely to die from dehydration if the proper conditions are not met. They require a moist medium, which, however, cannot be too wet lest the cutting rot. A number of media are used in this process, including but not limited to soil, perlite, vermiculite, coir, rock wool, expanded clay pellets, and even water given the right conditions. Some plants form roots much more easily. Soft wood cuttings are planted above ground and hard wood cuttings are totally submerged with soil. With hard wood cuttings, several cuttings are also bound together (to a bushel). Most succulent cuttings can be left on a table and small roots will form, and some other plants can form roots from having their cuttings placed in a cup of water.

Plant

Plants, also called green plants, are multicellular eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. They form an unranked clade Viridiplantae (Latin for green plants) that includes the flowering plants, conifers and other gymnosperms, ferns, clubmosses, hornworts, liverworts, mosses and the green algae. Green plants excludes the red and brown algae, the fungi, archaea, bacteria and animals.

Green plants have cell walls with cellulose and obtain most of their energy from sunlight via photosynthesis by primary chloroplasts, derived from endosymbiosis with cyanobacteria. Their chloroplasts contain chlorophylls a and b, which gives them their green color. Some plants are parasitic and have lost the ability to produce normal amounts of chlorophyll or to photosynthesize. Plants are also characterized by sexual reproduction, modular and indeterminate growth, and an alternation of generations, although asexual reproduction is also common.

Precise numbers are difficult to determine, but as of 2010, there are thought to be 300–315 thousand species of plants, of which the great majority, some 260–290 thousand, are seed plants (see the table below). Green plants provide most of the world's molecular oxygen and are the basis of most of the earth's ecologies, especially on land. Plants that produce grains, fruits and vegetables form mankind's basic foodstuffs, and have been domesticated for millennia. Plants are used as ornaments and, until recently and in great variety, they have served as the source of most medicines and drugs. The scientific study of plants is known as botany, a branch of biology.

Plantà

The plantá (which comes from the verb to plant; in Valencian, plantà) is the act of erecting a Falla or bonfire monument, in the Fallas or the Bonfires of Saint John, festivals held respectively in March and June in different localities of the Community of Valencia (Spain).The plantà is currently considered the exact moment when the falla or bonfire is completely finished and ready to be visited, with all its “ninots” (human figures made of combustible materials, such as cardboard or wood, which has a critical or mocking nature), posters and a variety of features (lights, matted grass, interpretive signs...).

In the Fallas of Valencia, the plantá takes place on March 15, when all the Falla monuments must be positioned correctly. The reason is that the jury appointed by the Central Fallera committee has to go to the next day to assess the falla. Formerly, the plantà began and ended the same day but, due to the complexity of the monuments and the fact that the makers of Fallas are responsible for several Fallas monuments at the same time, it usually begins a few days before. The burning of the Falla or cremá is carried out four days later, on the night of March 19.

Plant (disambiguation)

A plant is a living organism that generally does not move and absorbs nutrients from its surroundings.

Plant may also refer to:

In manufacturing and engineering

In media and entertainment

In names