How do shrubs adapt

A small leaf structure is another physical adaptation that helps plants survive. Plants lose water through their leaf surface.

By producing small leaves the plant is more able to retain the moisture it has stored. Back Next. Arctic Tundra [ Animals Plants ]. Animals Plants. By staying on established trails, hikers can help preserve the fragile living crust. The diversity of wildflowers in central Washington means travelers can find blooming plants from earliest spring into late fall.

Start now by getting out the see the amazing display of color in four types of shrub-steppe eco-regions:. This is the most common habitat central Washington. It includes area where scattered shrubs form a canopy above a ground cover of bunch grasses and wildflowers. The soil is relatively deep as the main shrub, big sagebrush Artemesia tridentata , requires a soil depth of at least 1 foot. Often, this habitat is found in the scablands, where episodes of the Missoula Floods swept away all topsoil.

Shrubs grow low to ground and often form a low mat. One local but non-native biennial, the burdock, grows in a circle, or rosette, of low lying leaves its first year. The next growing season the plant sends up long stalks with flowers that turn into the prickly burs seeds. These burs, which stick to clothes or fur, are carried by unsuspecting wildlife, dogs and people to new places and begin the two-year cycle again the following year.

Other plants, like trees and shrubs, become dormant, or rest in the winter. Tree and shrubs, along with herbaceous soft-stemmed plants live for two years or more and are referred to as perennials. They store their food, or sap, in their roots as mentioned above. All of the wildflowers that appear each spring are herbaceous perennials, living off the food stored in their roots so they can sprout again next spring.

Poison ivy also belongs in this group but has a woody stem that can be seen in winter, often climbing a tree as a vine or growing on the ground. We have the change of the seasons to thank for a delicious and familiar tree product — maple syrup. In the cold desert, the bushes grow as deciduous plants to take advantage of the short summer-growing season before losing their leaves until the following spring.

A variety of shrubs grow in the desert including tumbleweed, a symbol of the American western deserts, most commonly seen when wind pushes the round, dry balls across the landscape.

Brittle bush grows in the Mojave and Sonoran deserts where it produces beautiful yellow flowers in the spring. Other bushes include turpentine bush, creosote and prickly pears. In the cold deserts, shrubs grow very close to the ground and include several types of willows.

Desert climates stay dry because the air coming down from high-pressure zones gets heated from the hot ground before it can turn into rain. A range of hot and cold temperatures also causes shrubs to adapt.