Geography

We have learnt a total of 8topics in a year's work.The human and physical environment, topographical maps,interpreting photographs,landforms of the earth,rocks of the Earth,rivers and environment,weather and climate and lastly, natural vegetation. However, I'm just going to talk about natural vegetation. All the plants growing on the Earths surface can be grouped into 3 major types: Forests, grasslands and desert vegetation. Forests can be split into 3 different types of forests;tropical rainforests,temperate deciduous forests and temperate coniferous forests.
In tropical rainforests,there is high rainfall throughout the year ranging from 1000 to 2000mm and a temperature range of 20 to 30 degrees. Tropical rainforests can be found in the amazon basin in south America. Trees in tropical rainforests are evergreen. The leaves of the trees also have drip tip to allow water to flow off more easily. In addition, many trees also have broad leaf surfaces to ab sob as much sunlight as possible.
The trees and other plants grow very close to one another in the tropical rainforests. Therefore making the forests dense. There are 3 distinct layer in a tropical rainforests. The 3 layers are the undergrowth,canopy and the emergent. The undergrowth is mainly made up of shrubs,grasses,ferns,mosses and fungi. Plant growth is sparse because very little sunlight reaches this layer.
At the canopy are trees reaching 15-30m. Crowns of trees interlock to form a continuous leaf cover[or canopy]. The tropical rainforests is very cool,moist and shady because the canopy blocks out 70 to 100 percent of sunlight. Lianas are woody climbing plants that hang down from tree branches in loops. Epiphyes are plants that grow on other trees in order to receive more sunlight.
At the emergent layer are very tall trees, growing up to 40 -50 m high.These trees grow to such height to receive more sunlight. Tropical rainforests trees usually have buttress roots to support their tall heavy trunks.
-Samantha Lye-