The document summarizes Christian Raunkier's system for categorizing plants based on where their renewal buds are located during unfavorable seasons. It defines six life forms - epiphytes, phanerophytes, chameophytes, hemicryptophytes, cryptophytes, and therophytes - based on whether the buds are exposed, at the surface, below surface, or within seeds. Epiphytes grow on other plants, phanerophytes have exposed buds on upright shoots, chameophytes have buds at the surface, and therophytes have buds that persist only within seeds. The document also briefly discusses autotrophs, phagotrophs, saprotrophs,

2. Autotrophs
• The presence and dominance of the
rooted green plants are the chief food
maker and also provide shelter for other
organisms and play an important role
modifying the earth’s surface.

3. Raunkier System
(1934)• Christian C. Raunkier
• System for categorizing plants using
life-form categories.
• The system is based on the place of
the plant’s growth-point or the
renewal bud during seasons, and the
corresponding protection provided
during unfavorable cold or dry
periods.

4. Raunkier System
• Epiphytes
• Phanerophytes
• Chameophytes
• Hemi-Crytophytes
• Cryptophytes or Geophytes
• Therophytes

5. Epiphytes
• Plants growing on other plants
• Air plants, no roots in the soil
• Epiphytes, or air plants, grow
everywhere but can be found mainly
on the branches, trunks, and even the
leaves of trees. The name 'epiphyte'
comes from the Greek word 'epi'
meaning 'upon' and 'phyton' meaning
'plant'.

6. • Different types of epiphytes
may grow on the same tree,
including orchids, cacti,
bromeliads, aroids, lichens,
mosses and ferns. They
begin their life in the canopy
from seeds or spores
transported there by birds or
winds.

7. Phanerophytes
• Aerial plants
• Renewal buds exposed on upright
shoots.
• Examples are trees, shrubs, stem
succulents, herbaceous stems, and
lianas (vines)
• Typical in warm and moist
environment

9. Chameophytes
• Chamaephytes
• On the ground
• Renewal bud at the
surface of the
ground.
• Found in cool, dry
climate

10. Hemi-Crytophytes
• Buds are near or just
below the soil surface
• Shoot apical meristems
are borne at or near soil
level, as in biennial and
perennial rosette
plants,
likeDaucus, Taraxacum,
or Verbascum.

11. Cryptophytes or
Geophytes
• Hidden
• Bud in or just below
soil surface
• Shoot apical
meristems are borne
below the soil level, at
the tip of a more or
less elongate
underground stem, or
rhizome.

12. Therophytes
• Theros-summer
• Shoot apical meristems
persist during
unfavorable climatic
conditions only within
seeds. Annuals and
desert ephemerals are
examples of therophytes.

13. Phagotrophs
• Macroconsumers
• Primary consumers
• Include not only small
organisms such as
insects, very large
hervivores, such as
the hoofed mammals.

14. Saprotrops
• Microconsumers
• Organsims which carry on
the mineralization of organic
matter and perform other
valuable functions in the
terrestrial environment are
chiefly the bacteria and fungi
• Also include protozoa and
other small animals.

16. Microbiota
• Includes soil algae,
the bacteria, fungi,
and protozoa

17. Mesobiota
• Includes the
nematodes, the small
oligochaete worms, the
smaller larvae, and
especially the
microarthropods; of the
latter, the soil mite and
sprintailas.

18. Macrobiota
• Includes the roots
of plants, the larger
insects,
earthworms, and
other organism
which can easily be
sorted by hand.

20. References/Credits to:
• Google images
• www.cooltext.com
• http://www.slideshare.net/cadion_jhen11/ec
ology-report
• http://www.srl.caltech.edu/personnel/krubal/
rainforest/Edit560s6/www/plants/epiphytes.h
tml
• http://courses.eeb.utoronto.ca/eeb337/B_Ho
w/307B2life_forms.html