Tag: adapting to a habit

Halophytes are plants of saline habitats. Mangroves are marshy areas found in tropical deltas and saline ponds near sea shore. The areas have not only excess salt but also excess water or anaerobic conditions, besides difficulty in anchoring and seed germination. Plants growing in mangroves are halophytes.

Mangroves are plants that live in marshy areas along the seashores as they are adapted to take water inside by filtering out large amounts of salts present in seawater.

The delta which is formed by the confluence of Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna Rivers in the Bay of Bengal is known as Sunderbans. It is a mangrove area and contains lots of Mangrove forests. Four world heritage sites occur here viz Sundarbans National Park, Sundarbans West, Sundarbans South, and Sundarbans East Wildlife Sanctuaries. The word 'Sunderbans' means beautiful forests.

• An estuary is a partially enclosed body of water formed where freshwater from the land meets and mixes with saltwater from the ocean.
• Mangroves are forests of salt-tolerant trees and shrubs that grow in the shallow tidal waters of estuaries and coastal areas in tropical regions.
• Mangroves protect shorelines from damaging storm and hurricane winds, waves, and floods.
  
• Hence Mangrove forests occur in Estuaries.
• So, the correct answer is 'Estuaries'.

• A mangrove is a shrub or small tree that grows in coastal saline or brackish water. They protect shorelines from damaging storm and hurricane winds, waves, and floods.
• mangroves disperse propagules via water with varying degrees of vivipary or embryonic development while the propagule is attached to the parent tree. Hence mangroves exhibit vivipary.
  
• Pneumatophores are specialized root structures that grow out from the water surface and facilitate the aeration necessary for root respiration in hydrophytic trees. For example, mangroves. 
• Pneumatophores are the supporting roots for mangroves.
• Hence Vivipary, Pneumatophores, and Supporting roots are the characteristics of mangroves.
• So, the correct answer is 'All the above'.

A halophyte is a plant, that grows in waters of high salinity, coming into contact with saline water through its roots or by salt spray, such as in saline semi-deserts, mangrove swamps, marshes and sloughs, and seashores.

These specialized aerial roots enable plants to breathe air in habitats that have waterlogged soil. The roots may grow down from the stem, or up from typical roots. The surface of these roots are covered with lenticels which take up air into spongy tissue which in turn uses osmotic pathways to spread oxygen throughout the plant as needed. 

Pneumatophores are specialized root structures, that grow out from the water surface and facilitate the aeration, necessary for root respiration, present in mangroves like Rhizophora. 

The soil in coastal region is poorly aerated and it contains very small percentage of oxygen, because of waterlogging. Under such conditions, the roots of halophytes do not get sufficient aeration. In order to compensate this lack of soil aeration, the hydro-halophytes develop special type of negatively geotropic roots, called as pneumatophores or breathing roots. The pneumatophores usually develop from the underground roots and project in the air well above the surface of mud and water. They appear as peg-like structures. The tips of these respiratory roots may be pointed. They possess numerous lenticels or pneumathodes on their surface and prominent aerenchyma enclosing large air cavities internally. The gaseous exchange takes place in these roots through the lenticels.