Part 1
Few people think about what a forest is, what it"s made of. And this question is not as simple as it seems. The forest is first of all a complex plant community. It consists of many different plants: large trees that raise their crowns many meters above the ground, relatively high shrubs, low shrubs, all kinds of herbs and, finally, very small mosses and lichens.
All of these plants are closely related and affect each other in one way or another. And each of them occupies a certain place in the forest, plays a certain role in the life of the forest. The most important part of the forest vegetation community is green plants, primarily trees. They are the giant "factory" of organic matter, which forms the very basis of the forest. These plants use water, carbon dioxide, mineral salts and light as a source of energy.
The scale of the creative activity of green plants in the forest is huge. Suffice it to say that on every hectare only trees accumulate many tons of organic matter in their aboveground part - in the trunk and crown. Creating organic matter from primary mineral products, green plants provide food for a multitude of various living creatures living in the forest. One is necessary for a food alive parts of plants, others, on the contrary, are satisfied only with the died out vegetative rests.
The green population of the forest creates the necessary conditions for the existence of a wide variety of living organisms - from animals and birds to mushrooms and bacteria. All of them successfully reproduce and develop in the forest. Without the green "factory" their life would be impossible.
In the forest vegetation community, it is usually possible to identify several levels of plants. The upper tier is formed by trees, the lower tier of shrubs, the lower tier of grass and shrubs and, finally, the moss-lichen cover.
There are also plants in the forest that are not included in any of the tiers, such as vines that rise up the trees, mosses and lichens that cover the trunks. These are so-called off-tiers. Let us now consider in more detail the individual forest tiers and the main groups of forest plants.
The continuation should be...