Diagramium
🌿 Narrated diagram

Parts of a plant

Roots, stem, leaves, flower, fruit and seed — every part of a plant and the job it actually does, narrated from the soil all the way up to the next generation.

16 steps3 min readNarrated with a studio voice
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Parts of a plantis anchored bydrink throughsend water upis held up bycarries water incarries sugar inholds outmakes food inbreathes throughraisesadvertises withmakes pollen inreceives pollen inpollen leaves forpollen arrives byleads toprotectsgrows intobecomesA key idea or topic — the main building block of the mapA flowering plantA key idea or topic — the main building block of the mapRootsA narrower idea branching off a conceptRoot hairsA key idea or topic — the main building block of the mapThe stemA narrower idea branching off a conceptXylem tubesA narrower idea branching off a conceptPhloem tubesA key idea or topic — the main building block of the mapLeavesA narrower idea branching off a conceptStomataA key idea or topic — the main building block of the mapThe flowerA narrower idea branching off a conceptPetalsA narrower idea branching off a conceptStamenA narrower idea branching off a conceptPistilA concrete example of a concept — drawn as an ovalPollinationA key idea or topic — the main building block of the mapFruitA key idea or topic — the main building block of the mapSeedsA concrete example of a concept — drawn as an ovalAnd it starts again
Parts of a plant — the complete diagram. Press Present to watch it build itself.
Parts of a plant — A flowering plant
Step 1 of 16

A flowering plant

A plant looks like one single thing, but it is really a team. Roots, stem, leaves, flower, fruit and seed each do a completely different job, and more than three hundred thousand kinds of flowering plant are all built from that same short list of parts.

Parts of a plant — Roots
Step 2 of 16

Roots

Roots do two things at the same time. They grip the soil so wind cannot topple the plant over, and they drink. The roots of one rye plant, laid end to end, would stretch for over six hundred kilometres.

Parts of a plant — Root hairs
Step 3 of 16

Root hairs

The actual drinking is done by root hairs, each one a single cell stretched into a thread far thinner than one of your own hairs. They give the root a huge surface, and they are why yanking a plant out so often kills it.

Parts of a plant — The stem
Step 4 of 16

The stem

The stem is the plant's tower and its plumbing rolled into one. It lifts the leaves into the light before the neighbours can get there, and it carries everything travelling between the roots and the leaves. Some bamboo stems climb nearly a metre in a single day.

Parts of a plant — Xylem tubes
Step 5 of 16

Xylem tubes

Xylem tubes carry water upward in one long unbroken thread. There is no pump anywhere in a plant. Water evaporating from the leaves at the very top pulls the whole column up, sometimes a hundred metres in a tall tree.

Parts of a plant — Phloem tubes
Step 6 of 16

Phloem tubes

Phloem tubes run the other way, carrying sugary sap made in the leaves down to the roots and out to every growing tip. The sap is under such pressure that when an aphid taps a single tube, it does not need to suck at all. The plant pushes its own sugar straight through the insect.

Parts of a plant — Leaves
Step 7 of 16

Leaves

A leaf is a solar panel, spread flat and thin so that light reaches almost every cell inside. Green chlorophyll catches the sunlight and builds sugar out of water and air, and a full grown oak tree runs about two hundred thousand of these panels at once.

Parts of a plant — Stomata
Step 8 of 16

Stomata

Turn a leaf over and the underside is covered in thousands of tiny mouths called stomata, far too small to see. They open to let carbon dioxide in, then shut on a hot day so the plant does not dry out.

Parts of a plant — The flower
Step 9 of 16

The flower

The flower is the whole reason the plant bothered growing. It is a device for getting pollen from one plant onto another, because plants cannot walk off to find a partner and have to persuade something else to carry it for them.

Parts of a plant — Petals
Step 10 of 16

Petals

Petals are billboards. Their colour and their scent are aimed at bees and butterflies, and many petals carry stripes that we cannot even see, because bees see ultraviolet light and those hidden stripes point straight at the nectar.

Parts of a plant — Stamen
Step 11 of 16

Stamen

The stamen is the male part, a slender stalk topped with a dusty head that manufactures pollen. A single flower can release millions of grains, and each grain carries half the instructions needed to build a whole new plant.

Parts of a plant — Pistil
Step 12 of 16

Pistil

The pistil is the female part standing in the middle. Its tip is deliberately sticky so that arriving pollen grains stay put, and at its base sits the ovary, holding the tiny eggs that are waiting to become seeds.

Parts of a plant — Pollination
Step 13 of 16

Pollination

When a bee brushes past, pollen catches on its fur and rides to the next flower. The grain then grows a microscopic tube down through the pistil to reach an egg, and that meeting is fertilisation. It can take hours or days.

Parts of a plant — Fruit
Step 14 of 16

Fruit

Once an egg is fertilised the ovary swells and becomes fruit. An apple, a tomato, a pea pod and an acorn are all fruit, and every one of them is really just a lunchbox built around a seed.

Parts of a plant — Seeds
Step 15 of 16

Seeds

Inside the seed is a baby plant with its own packed lunch, sealed up and able to wait. Some seeds have sprouted after two thousand years. One date palm was grown from a seed found in the ruins of an ancient desert fortress.

Parts of a plant — And it starts again
Step 16 of 16

And it starts again

So the plant ends exactly where it started. A seed lands somewhere, roots push down, a stem pushes up, leaves catch the light, and a flower opens to do the whole thing over again the following year.

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