The Private Life of Plants
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The Private Life of Plants

1995, Nature  -   17 Comments
7.68
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Ratings: 7.68/10 from 19 users.

The series utilizes time-lapse sequences extensively in order to grant insights that would otherwise be almost impossible. Plants live on a different time scale, and even though their life is highly complex and often surprising, most of it is invisible to humans unless events that happen over months or even years are shown within seconds.

Like many traditional wildlife documentaries, it makes use of almost no computer animation. The series also discusses fungi, although as it is pointed out, these do not belong to the kingdom of plants. The mechanisms of evolution are taught transparently by showing the advantages of various types of plant behavior in action.

The adaptations are often complex, as it becomes clear that the environment to which plants must adapt comprises not just soil, water and weather, but also other plants, fungi, insects and other animals, and even humans. The series shows that co-operative strategies are often much more effective than predatory ones, as these often lead to the prey developing methods of self-defense - from plants growing spikes to insects learning to recognise mimicry.

Yet humans can work around all these rules of nature, so Attenborough concludes with a plea to preserve plants, in the interest of self-preservation.

Episode 1 - Traveling. This episode looks at how plants are able to move. The bramble is an aggressive example: it advances forcefully from side to side and, once settled on its course, there is little that can stand in its way.

Episode 2 - Growing. Sunlight is one of the essential requirements if a seed is to germinate, and Attenborough highlights the cheese plant as an example whose young shoots head for the nearest tree trunk and then climb to the top of the forest canopy, developing its leaves en route.

Episode 3 - Flowering. Pollen and a stigma are the two components needed for fertilisation. Most plants carry both these within their flowers and rely on animals to transport the pollen from one to the stigma of another. To do this, they attract their couriers with color, scent and nectar.

Episode 4 - The Social Struggle. Attenborough highlights the 1987 hurricane and the devastation it caused. However, for some species, it was that opportunity for which they had lain dormant for many years. The space left by uprooted trees is soon filled by others who move relatively swiftly towards the light.

Episode 5 - Living Together. Attenborough dives into Australia's Great Barrier Reef and contrasts the nocturnal feeding of coral, on microscopic creatures, with its daytime diet of algae. Some acacias are protected by ants, which will defend their refuge from any predator.

Episode 6 - Surviving. Attenborough visits Ellesmere Island, north of the Arctic Circle, to demonstrate that even in a place that is unconducive to life, it can be found. Algae and lichens grow in or on rock, and during summer, when the ice melts, flowers are much more apparent.

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Leon
Leon
12 years ago

wow the earth star looks like an alien egg

Morton
Morton
12 years ago

When aminos bond as a peptide it yields a molecule of water. This reaction is reversible. In an aqueous solution peptides are twice as likely to unbond than they are to bond. Here's the reality: life could not have started in a soup of amino acids in water.

david
david
13 years ago

I was going to use them for my bio. class too. I wonder if they are down for copyright issues.

Jason
Jason
13 years ago

Yeah, where are the videos??? I was looking forward to sharing these with my biology students!

Coral
Coral
13 years ago

The videos aren't available anymore? Is there anywhere else to watch them?

Serge
Serge
13 years ago

We are VERY,VERY lucky to be living on this beautiful planet! Documentaries such as this only reaffirm this fact!

gero2006
gero2006
13 years ago

When I was a child I found it difficult to believe that plants were really alive, not alive like animals and people are alive. I recently read somewhere that many children (and adults) share that disbelief. But in the original series by Attenborough, 'Life on Earth', broadcast in 1979 there was footage of 'sperm cells' of mosses swimming through water to fertilize the 'ova' of other mosses which was so like watching animal or human reproduction that it was impossible to doubt any longer.

It was a realisation that stunned me when I first saw the footage. I was in awe. After that I made sure to watch every Attenborough documentary I could find. It helped me choose my career (as a scientist). It also challenged my religious beliefs - I'm a vegan for religious and moral reasons and eating sophisticated living beings like plants suddenly began to feel so wrong... Not that eating animals was right but that eating plants was also wrong. But in that case what can you eat? Yes, that first documentary was a real spiritual and moral shock, even for a child, especially for a child. Made me go deeper into philosophy and theology as well as deeper into science, a real all round education.

I'm a scientist so I don't share the idealising attitude to science that Attenborough has - science is messy not neat; it deals with contingencies not absolutes; and Sir David makes it sound too cosy and pat, like something out of the 1950s. 'Scientists did this...' and 'scientists did that...' Like knights in shiny armour riding along on horseback to answer the world's puzzles. Ha! But I can overlook that and enjoy the photography and Attenborough's voice-over (not the music though, that is always horrible - but in a way you get to welcome the horrible music because it is so much part of the experience).

Early series were excellent. Later series (from 'Planet Earth' onwards) are less interesting, just HD footage spliced together without any real narrative. They're less of a documentary and more like flipping through National Geographic magazines in the dentist's waiting room. Nice images, no intellectual content. No matter, I can honestly say that watching this series on amazing plants and the other wildlife documentaries by Sir David Attenborough changed my life. Can't say that about every t.v. programme!

Thank you, Sir David / BBC Bristol / Oxford Scientific Films and other pioneers for making this happen... And thank you whoever posted these documentaries for us all to share. Very public spirited.

natasha rose
natasha rose
13 years ago

im in love with david attenbourough, and all the work he does

tyler durden
tyler durden
13 years ago

A commonly overlooked faction of life. How easy is it to assume we are evolutions end. Plants seem to have surpassed us in many ways, technologically and socially.

Zena97
Zena97
13 years ago

Yes i absolutely agree that this is an excellent documentary. It has taught me so much things that i didn't knew before.

David
David
13 years ago

This is a documentary masterpiece. Every child in America should see this film. Even those uninterested in plants could appreciate the cinematography. The diversity of life on this planet is astounding and awe inspiring. Thank's to the creator of this site. I have seen many of the documentaries posted and appreciate the opportunity to learn. I'm 58 years old and still enjoy learning about our planet and it's inhabitants.

Andrea
Andrea
14 years ago

Hey Vlatco thanks for posting up all these great films for us! We have fallin inlove with documentaries too and this makes it so easy to find them. number six just cut off short at the end. Boo. we were enjoying it.

Charles B.
Charles B.
14 years ago

I really like it too, but it seems like the first one cuts off about 5 minutes early (or at least it did when I wateched it).

Vltatko: Is the first episode as complete as it can be? It cut off when the bird was hiding the pine seeds so I didn't get to see the last part of the documentary. Nonetheless a "10" from me. Love it!

Achems Razor
Achems Razor
14 years ago

This is an excellent Doc!

Narrated by Attenborough.

A lot of weird plants. Shows a great number of different animals. Some very funny parts.

A pleasure to watch.