How does a tiny little seed grow into a massive tree or plant？
In: Biology
When a seed germinates, it develops roots and small leaves pretty quickly, converting the water given to it and nutrients inside the seed into the necessary materials. From then on, they get water, phosphorous, nitrogen and other chemicals from the soil they’re in, and CO2 from the air. Those materials are converted to things like DNA, proteins, Sugars, and the other things that make up the cells in a plant.
Plants can get water either from their leaves or their roots, depending on where they can get more. Since plants don’t move or have to worry about finding food, the sun comes to them, they’re able to spend all of their resources on growing instead of spending energy, that could be going towards growing, towards moving to get food.
Your body is about 93% oxygen, carbon, and hydrogen, in that order. Plants, from what I can find, are roughly similar. All of those elements can be obtained from air (CO2) and water (H2O). Plants get most of their mass from air and water. Animals get most of their mass by eating stuff.
The same way a tiny human embryo (a seed is just a plant embryo) grows into a full adult human: They consume stuff from their environment use it as building material. When we eat food, our bodies break it down and use it to build more cells. Similary, trees take in water, carbon dioxide, and nutrients from soil, and with help of sunlight, turn it into more stuff to grow.
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