Running head: PLANTS IN CRIME 1

PLANT IN CRIME: THE USE OF PLANTS IN FORENSIC SCIENCE AND THE USE OF PLANT

FOR CRIMINAL PURPOSES

Name

Institution
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Introduction

Plant kingdom generally occupies a greatest percentage of the terrestrial ecosystem. This

is the reason why they are capable of influencing their immediate ecosystems environment

substrate and habitat by their collective activities in different ways. This affects the earths

climate conditions and constituent atmospheric compositions. Plant species have an ancient

origin that dates back to the initial existence of life on earth. Originally, plants restrained their

growth to only the aquatic environment. However, they later began to colonize land and are

currently found on even particularly harsh localities of the earths ecosystem. Different plants

have since transformed and evolved to survive effectively in their habitat. This has resulted in the

current diversity of plant species available on the planet earth. These diversities resulted from

evolution due to environmental changes, human domestication and protection from self-

extinction.

1. Exploring the Chemistry and Structure of Plants

Plants are diverse in shape and physiological functionalities. Generally a plant structure is

divided into two divisions; the vegetative fraction and sexual reproductive fraction. The sections

of the plants that are responsible for the producing seeds are called the sexual reproductive part.

This comprises of the flowers, flower buds, seeds and fruits. Whereas their vegetative division

consists of roots, leaves, stems and leaf buds. They are normally used in vegetative or asexual

reproduction in plants mostly as cuttings.

The stems are the structural parts of plant which support their leaves and buds. They also act

as the conduit that carries minerals, sugar and water to other parts of the plant. The stem is

subdivided into three parts that include the phloem, xylem and cambium. The vascular system of

the plant comprises of the phloem and xylem. Xylem conduct minerals and water whereas
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phloem is the tube that conduct food. Monocot and dicot have different arrangement in their

vascular systems. The vascular system of monocot consists of paired forms of xylem and phloem

in dispersed manner throughout the stem. In dicots, these vascular systems have ring-like

arrangement within the stem. Phloem normally forms the outer ring and normally forms part of a

mature stem. Xylem forms the inner ring and comprises of the woody plants heartwood and

sapwood.

The root part of the plants, absorb mineral nutrients and water from the soil. Root hairs are

supportive components of the root that increase their surface area to enhance absorption of water

from the soil. The leaf supports the plant through photosynthesis and transpiration. The leafs

tissues protective layers are referred to as the lower and upper epidermis. The leaf also has

cuticles which are waxy upper epidermis layers that inhibit water lose fom the leaves. Its

mesophyll spongy layer contains chloroplast which photosynthesizes sugars. The Stomata are

spores on the lower epidermis that are surrounded by guard cells and facilitate transpiration.

Flowers are the productive part of a plant and are subdivided into the stamen, piston, sepals,

nectar glands and petals. The pistil, which is the female part of the flower, comprises of style,

stigma and ovary. Ovules have ovaries that form seeds after fertilization. The stamen, which is

the male reproductive part, is made up of the pollen grains in the anther and filaments. Filaments

are long and strategically hold anthers in position so that they can disperse pollen grains. Sepals,

which are the leafy parts of a flower, are used to protect the flowers bud.

Petals are the colored parts of the flower which produces nectar glands and perfume. Petals

are collectively referred to as corolla. The fruit is the mature and fertilize ovules and ovary. The

ovary forms the wall of the fruit and sometimes become fleshy while ovules form seeds that

when dispersed germinate into new plants.

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2. Diversity of plant kingdom and Uses of plants by human culture

Diversity of plants is largely seen around the environment. Plant kingdom origin is estimated

to date back to about three and a half billion years (Garnier, Navas, and Grigulis, 2016). With

time, different plants transformed and evolved diversely into the current plant kingdom because

of their numerous forms, organizations and functions.

There arose needs for taxonomy in order to give an account of the numerous species of plants

that exist. Geneticists, evolutionists and palaeontologist have worked together and managed to

outline evolution in plant kingdom and the origin of life. These findings have successfully related

different species with respect to their position in the tree of life diagnosis on the basis of their

respective evolutionary history. This is the taxonomic aspect of diversity that currently portray a

toll estimate of nine million different species of plants (Garnier, Navas, and Grigulis, 2016).

The other aspect of diversity in plant kingdom emerges from their functionality facet.

This is because plant organisms have diverse traits arising from their specialized ways to obtain

and transform resources for livelihood. Their diversity is also as a result of communities

organizing and controlling them to obtain services effectively. Based on the atmospheric climate

and composition and substrate utilized, plants were initially classified as sub-shrubs, shrubs,

trees and herbs. This classification was later developed by Raunkiaer, who classification plants

according to the growth point or bud that will survive during harsh environment and hence result

into a new plant for the next generation (Garnier, Navas, and Grigulis, 2016). Currently, the

diversity in plant kingdom has been integrated by a combination of their respective

physiological, reproductive and morphological attributes.

3. Way in which plant has shaped different cultures

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Indigenous plant formed integral medicine within the ancient culture setup. The gradual

increase in population later pressurized the need for more medication from indigenous plants

species. This resulted in overharvesting and even extinction of indigenous plant medicine.

Deficits in medicinal plants resulted in the introduction of non-indigenous species, in the

industrialized culture, to effectively bridge the gap. Currently, evolution has resulted in more

usage of non-indigenous medicine. Community forests and secondary forests have readily

availed non-indigenous medicine. This has resulted in the development of the current

pharmacopoeia module (Kunwar, Acharya, Chowdhary and Bussmann, 2015).

Humans have always relied on indigenous plants as essential diet for many years. Food

nutrition from plants, come from their leafy greens, differently shaped roots, fleshy fruits, seeds,

grains and nuts. Linchens, mashrooms and algae are also food varieties obtained from plants.

These species of food need cultural knowledge on cultivation, harvesting and cooking. However

education, work, plant diseases and extinction undermine the need to hand down useful

knowledge regarding indigenous food crops. There is therefore a down turn in knowledge

regarding their preparation and use. New species of food crops, which resist diseases and adopt

well to the changing weather condition have been realized (Turner, Jakub, Migliorini, Pieroni,

Dreon, Sacchetti and Paoletti, 2011).

4. Ways in which man domesticate plant and change the ecosystem.

Most domesticated crops are relatives of their respective wild variety of species.

Domesticated crops, have however been engineered to become disease resistant and facilitate

handling them in the farms. It is not possible to engineer all indigenous plants because some

species lack attribute for managing and cultivating them or are susceptible to diseases.
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Domesticated crops have traits that were developed so as to survive in harsh environment

and successfully result into large scale farming for sale. The main traits that are engineered

enhance seed size, dormancy period, coat size and ease to disperse and handle. This is called

hybridization and is aimed at facilitating standard methods of farming. Barley farming has

effectively embraced this technology to enhance their wild progenitor species. During their

hybridization, male sterile hordeum spontaneum of pre-domesticated barley are genetically

modeled to increase germplast resilient traits. The hybridize population is then studied to

determine genetically modified populations with strong quantitative survival schemes. This

process is repeated severally on selected populations. Finally, careful selection result in

genetically modified barley with agronomic traits, nutrition quality, good yield and better

processing quality (Maxted, Dullooo, and In Ford-Lloyd, 2016).

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References

Garnier E., Navas M., and Grigulis K., (2016). Plant functional diversity: Organism trait,

community structure and ecosystem properties. United Kingdom: Oxford University

Press

Kunwar M. R., Acharya P. R. , Chowdhary L. C. and Bussmann W. R. (2015). Journal of

Ethnopharmacology: Medicinal plant dynamics in indigenous medicine in farwest

Mepal.163 Pg 210 219.

Maxted N., Dullooo M. E., and In Ford-Lloyd B. (2016). Enhancing crop genepool use:

Capturing wild relative and landrace diversity for crop improvement. Boston,MA: CABI.

Seasholes K. and DeVoil R.,(1998,).Arizona master gardener Manual: An essential reference for

gardening in the desert southwest. Tucson, Arizona: Cooperative extension, collage of

Agriculture the University of Arisona.pg 16-23

Turner J. N., Jakub L., Migliorini P., Pieroni A., Dreon L. A., Sacchetti E. L and Paoletti G. M.

(2011). Critical review in plant science: Edible and tending wild plants, traditional

ecology knowledge and agroecology.Pg 198 225.