Liquids include water, as well as body fluids such as blood, gastric juices, nutrient-laden liquids, and more. To survive, many living systems must move such liquids within themselves or between locations. Because of their properties, liquids tend to disperse unless they are confined in some way. To address this, living systems have strategies to confine fluids for transport, and to overcome barriers such as gravity, friction, and other forces. Some of these same barriers also provide opportunities. Trees and giraffes face the same challenge: how to move fluids (water and blood, respectively) upward against gravity. But their strategies are quite different. The tree moves water using capillary action and evaporation, possibly due to water’s properties of polarity and adhesion. The giraffe’s tight skin provides pressure to assist in blood circulation. and keep blood from pooling in the legs.
Clade Gymnosperms (“naked seeds“): Conifers, cycads, Gingko, gnetophytes
There are approximately 1,000 known species of Gymnosperms. These include well known needle-bearing plants like pines, firs, and spruce, as well as some with broad leaves like the Gingko and the gnetophytes. Instead of flowers, gymnosperms produce unenclosed (“naked”)seeds exposed on the surface of cone scales. Economically, conifers make up 45 percent of the world’s lumber production. The first gymnosperms evolved over 390 million years ago in the Paleozoic Era and dominated landscapes for a quarter of a billion years before the evolution and diversification of flowering plants.
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