The tallest living tree is a redwood in California named Hyperion that is 115.92 meters (380 feet) tall - taller than Big Ben!

The oldest living tree is a bristlecone pine tree in California named Methuselah, and it’s 4,853 years old. That means Methuselah is older than the pyramids!

The world’s smallest flower is the Wolffia globosa, commonly known as duckweed. It’s just a tenth of a millimeter - smaller than a grain of salt. They grow on top of lakes or marshes, and look sort of like green cornmeal.

Yes - there are lots of plants that move on their own. A common example is the Venus Flytrap, which closes around prey that lands on it, but there’s lots of other examples. Some plants bend towards sources of light, and even follow the sun as it moves across the sky. A plant called the Mimos pudice closes its leaves after being touched. Giant water lilies grow out of the water and use a large, club-like bud to clear other plants from the water’s surface.

Plants don’t have brains or nervous systems like animals do, so they can’t think or feel pain (or anything else) like we do. They do, however, have responses to threats, such as the smell of freshly cut grass, which is actually a mixture of chemicals that help regrow the damage and attract predators of caterpillars and other animals that munch on grass.

A kind of tree in South Africa called the Shepherd’s Tree has been recorded with roots that extended 223 feet (68 m) into the ground, deeper than any other tree. That means its roots extended farther down into the Earth than the height of the leaning tower of Pisa.

Mushrooms are NOT plants - they’re fungi! Fungi are different from both plants and animals. Like plants, they don’t move on their own. But while most plants get energy from the sun, fungi get energy by eating other organisms, like animals. Most fungi are detritivores, meaning they eat things that are already dead, like fallen down trees. That makes fungi really important - they’re what clear away all the dead plants from the ground.

Cacti thrive in deserts, where it hardly ever rains. They have several adaptations that help them survive long periods without water. They can store lots of water in their body, so that when it does rain, they can soak up as much as possible. They have a waxy coating that helps retain moisture. Finally, while most plants “breathe” during the day, cacti only breathe at night, allowing them to keep their pores closed when the sun is out to avoid losing water to evaporation.

Cutting an onion releases chemicals that were previously separated, allowing them to mix together. When that happens, those chemicals react, creating a new chemical that irritates your eye. Tears are the your eyes’ main defense mechanism - they wash away anything you don’t want in your eye. So when those irritating new chemicals touch the surface of your eye, you produce tears to wash them clean.