Respiration in Plants

Types of Respiration (Group B)

Do you think plants also respire like other organisms? If so, then how do plants take in oxygen?

Just like all other living organisms, plants too respire. They respire through the tiny pores on the surface of their leaves called stomata. Oxygen enters the plant, while carbon dioxide leaves the plant through these pores.

The roots of plants also respire. 

They do so by taking in oxygen from the air spaces present in soil by the process of diffusion. Oxygen is taken in and carbon dioxide moves out with the help of diffusion only. This type of gaseous exchange takes place in the younger roots only, and not in the older roots. In the older roots, the exchange of gases occurs by lenticels. The lenticels are thin walled loosely arranged cells with intercellular spaces present for gaseous exchange.

In plants growing in mangroves or saline swamps, the root is modified to pneumatophores. They bear breathing pores (lenticels) and emerge out of the soil for gaseous exchange.

In some trees, the trunk of the trees bear small openings called lenticels. Through these openings in the bark, gaseous  exchange takes place. The lenticels look like scars on the tree bar…