Plant
Plants are multicellular, predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. Plants were treated as one of two kingdoms including all living things that were not animals, all algae and fungi were treated as plants. However, all current definitions of Plantae exclude the fungi and some algae, as well as the prokaryotes. By one definition, plants form the clade Viridiplantae, a group that includes the flowering plants and other gymnosperms and their allies, liverworts and the green algae, but excludes the red and brown algae. Green plants obtain most of their energy from sunlight via photosynthesis by primary chloroplasts that are derived from endosymbiosis with cyanobacteria, their chloroplasts contain b, which gives them their green color. Some plants are parasitic or mycotrophic and have lost the ability to produce normal amounts of chlorophyll or to photosynthesize. Plants are characterized by sexual reproduction and alternation of generations, although asexual reproduction is common.
There are about 320 thousand species of plants, of which the great majority, some 260–290 thousand, are seed plants. Green plants provide a substantial proportion of the world's molecular oxygen and are the basis of most of Earth's ecosystems on land. Plants that produce grain and vegetables form humankind's basic foods, have been domesticated for millennia. Plants have many cultural and other uses, as ornaments, building materials, writing material and, in great variety, they have been the source of medicines and psychoactive drugs; the scientific study of plants is known as a branch of biology. All living things were traditionally placed into one of two groups and animals; this classification may date from Aristotle, who made the distincton between plants, which do not move, animals, which are mobile to catch their food. Much when Linnaeus created the basis of the modern system of scientific classification, these two groups became the kingdoms Vegetabilia and Animalia. Since it has become clear that the plant kingdom as defined included several unrelated groups, the fungi and several groups of algae were removed to new kingdoms.
However, these organisms are still considered plants in popular contexts. The term "plant" implies the possession of the following traits multicellularity, possession of cell walls containing cellulose and the ability to carry out photosynthesis with primary chloroplasts; when the name Plantae or plant is applied to a specific group of organisms or taxon, it refers to one of four concepts. From least to most inclusive, these four groupings are: Another way of looking at the relationships between the different groups that have been called "plants" is through a cladogram, which shows their evolutionary relationships; these are not yet settled, but one accepted relationship between the three groups described above is shown below. Those which have been called "plants" are in bold; the way in which the groups of green algae are combined and named varies between authors. Algae comprise several different groups of organisms which produce food by photosynthesis and thus have traditionally been included in the plant kingdom.
The seaweeds range from large multicellular algae to single-celled organisms and are classified into three groups, the green algae, red algae and brown algae. There is good evidence that the brown algae evolved independently from the others, from non-photosynthetic ancestors that formed endosymbiotic relationships with red algae rather than from cyanobacteria, they are no longer classified as plants as defined here; the Viridiplantae, the green plants – green algae and land plants – form a clade, a group consisting of all the descendants of a common ancestor. With a few exceptions, the green plants have the following features in common, they undergo closed mitosis without centrioles, have mitochondria with flat cristae. The chloroplasts of green plants are surrounded by two membranes, suggesting they originated directly from endosymbiotic cyanobacteria. Two additional groups, the Rhodophyta and Glaucophyta have primary chloroplasts that appear to be derived directly from endosymbiotic cyanobacteria, although they differ from Viridiplantae in the pigments which are used in photosynthesis and so are different in colour.
These groups differ from green plants in that the storage polysaccharide is floridean starch and is stored in the cytoplasm rather than in the plastids. They appear to have had a common origin with Viridiplantae and the three groups form the clade Archaeplastida, whose name implies that their chloroplasts were derived from a single ancient endosymbiotic event; this is the broadest modern definition of the term'plant'. In contrast, most other algae not only have different pigments but have chloroplasts with three or four surrounding membranes, they are not close relatives of the Archaeplastida having acquired chloroplasts separately from ingested or symbiotic green and red algae. They are thus not included in the broadest modern definition of the plant kingdom, although they were in the past; the green plants or Viridiplantae were traditionally divided into the green algae (including
Athrotaxis selaginoides
Athrotaxis selaginoides is a species of Athrotaxis, endemic to Tasmania in Australia, where it grows at 400–1,120 m altitude. In its habitat in the mountains, snow in winter is usual, it is called King Billy Pine or King William Pine, although it is not a true pine. It is an evergreen coniferous tree growing to 20–30 m tall, with a trunk up to 1.5 m diameter. The leaves are claw-like, 7–18 mm long and 3–4 mm broad, arranged spirally on the shoots; the seed cones are globose. The pollen cones are 4–5 mm long; the main cause of past decline has been fire, with about one third of its habitat burnt in the twentieth century. Like the other two Athrotaxis species, A. selaginoides is sensitive to fire. Another cause of past decline has been logging; the overall decline is estimated to be about 40% over the last 200 years. This is within the three generation time limit where one generation is estimated to be at least 100 years. Although 84% of forests are now in protected areas, fires still are a potential hazard.
Tasmanian government policy precludes logging of this species outside these protected areas. Away from its native range, it is cultivated as an ornamental tree in northwestern Europe, it succeeds in Scotland where it receives the necessary rainfalls for its good growth and produces fertile seeds there
Seed
A seed is an embryonic plant enclosed in a protective outer covering. The formation of the seed is part of the process of reproduction in seed plants, the spermatophytes, including the gymnosperm and angiosperm plants. Seeds are the product of the ripened ovule, after fertilization by pollen and some growth within the mother plant; the embryo is developed from the seed coat from the integuments of the ovule. Seeds have been an important development in the reproduction and success of gymnosperm and angiosperm plants, relative to more primitive plants such as ferns and liverworts, which do not have seeds and use water-dependent means to propagate themselves. Seed plants now dominate biological niches on land, from forests to grasslands both in hot and cold climates; the term "seed" has a general meaning that antedates the above – anything that can be sown, e.g. "seed" potatoes, "seeds" of corn or sunflower "seeds". In the case of sunflower and corn "seeds", what is sown is the seed enclosed in a shell or husk, whereas the potato is a tuber.
Many structures referred to as "seeds" are dry fruits. Plants producing berries are called baccate. Sunflower seeds are sometimes sold commercially while still enclosed within the hard wall of the fruit, which must be split open to reach the seed. Different groups of plants have other modifications, the so-called stone fruits have a hardened fruit layer fused to and surrounding the actual seed. Nuts are the one-seeded, hard-shelled fruit of some plants with an indehiscent seed, such as an acorn or hazelnut. Seeds are produced in several related groups of plants, their manner of production distinguishes the angiosperms from the gymnosperms. Angiosperm seeds are produced in a hard or fleshy structure called a fruit that encloses the seeds for protection in order to secure healthy growth; some fruits have layers of both fleshy material. In gymnosperms, no special structure develops to enclose the seeds, which begin their development "naked" on the bracts of cones. However, the seeds do become covered by the cone scales.
Seed production in natural plant populations varies from year to year in response to weather variables and diseases, internal cycles within the plants themselves. Over a 20-year period, for example, forests composed of loblolly pine and shortleaf pine produced from 0 to nearly 5 million sound pine seeds per hectare. Over this period, there were six bumper, five poor, nine good seed crops, when evaluated for production of adequate seedlings for natural forest reproduction. Angiosperm seeds consist of three genetically distinct constituents: the embryo formed from the zygote, the endosperm, triploid, the seed coat from tissue derived from the maternal tissue of the ovule. In angiosperms, the process of seed development begins with double fertilization, which involves the fusion of two male gametes with the egg cell and the central cell to form the primary endosperm and the zygote. Right after fertilization, the zygote is inactive, but the primary endosperm divides to form the endosperm tissue.
This tissue becomes the food the young plant will consume until the roots have developed after germination. After fertilization the ovules develop into the seeds; the ovule consists of a number of components: The funicle or seed stalk which attaches the ovule to the placenta and hence ovary or fruit wall, at the pericarp. The nucellus, the remnant of the megasporangium and main region of the ovule where the megagametophyte develops; the micropyle, a small pore or opening in the apex of the integument of the ovule where the pollen tube enters during the process of fertilization. The chalaza, the base of the ovule opposite the micropyle, where integument and nucellus are joined together; the shape of the ovules as they develop affects the final shape of the seeds. Plants produce ovules of four shapes: the most common shape is called anatropous, with a curved shape. Orthotropous ovules are straight with all the parts of the ovule lined up in a long row producing an uncurved seed. Campylotropous ovules have a curved megagametophyte giving the seed a tight "C" shape.
The last ovule shape is called amphitropous, where the ovule is inverted and turned back 90 degrees on its stalk. In the majority of flowering plants, the zygote's first division is transversely oriented in regards to the long axis, this establishes the polarity of the embryo; the upper or chalazal pole becomes the main area of growth of the embryo, while the lower or micropylar pole produces the stalk-like suspensor that attaches to the micropyle. The suspensor absorbs and manufactures nutrients from the endosperm that are used during the embryo's growth; the main components of the embryo are: The cotyledons, the seed leaves, attached to the embryonic axis. There may be two; the cotyledons are the source of nutrients in the non-endospermic dicotyledons, in which case they replace the endosperm, are thick and leathery. In endospermic seeds the cotyledons are papery. Dicotyledons have the point of attachment opposite one another on the axis; the epicotyl, the embryonic axis above the point of attachment of the cotyledon.
The plumule, the tip of the epicotyl, has a feathery appearance due to the presence of young leaf primordia at the apex, will become the shoot upon germination. The hypocotyl, the embryonic axis below the point of attachment of the cotyledon, connecting the epicotyl and the radicle, being the stem-root transition zone; the radicle, the basal tip of the hy
Flora of Australia
The flora of Australia comprises a vast assemblage of plant species estimated to over 20,000 vascular and 14,000 non-vascular plants, 250,000 species of fungi and over 3,000 lichens. The flora has strong affinities with the flora of Gondwana, below the family level has a endemic angiosperm flora whose diversity was shaped by the effects of continental drift and climate change since the Cretaceous. Prominent features of the Australian flora are adaptations to aridity and fire which include scleromorphy and serotiny; these adaptations are common in species from the large and well-known families Proteaceae and Fabaceae. The arrival of humans around 50,000 years ago and settlement by Europeans from 1788, has had a significant impact on the flora; the use of fire-stick farming by Aboriginal people led to significant changes in the distribution of plant species over time, the large-scale modification or destruction of vegetation for agriculture and urban development since 1788 has altered the composition of most terrestrial ecosystems, leading to the extinction of 61 plant species and endangering over 1000 more.
Austrial major commonwealth foundations Australia was part of the southern supercontinent Gondwana, which included South America, Africa and Antarctica. Most of the modern Australian flora had their origin in Gondwana during the Cretaceous when Australia was covered in subtropical rainforest. Australian ferns and gymnosperm bear strong resemblance to their Gondwanan ancestors, prominent members of the early Gondwanan angiosperm flora such as the Nothofagus and Proteaceae were present in Australia. Gondwana began to break up 140 million years ago; as Australia drifted and global climate change had a significant and lasting effect: a circumpolar oceanic current developed, atmospheric circulation increased as Australia moved away from Antarctica, precipitation fell, there was a slow warming of the continent and arid conditions started to develop. These conditions of geographic isolation and aridity led to the development of a more complex flora. From 25-10 MYA pollen records suggest the rapid radiation of species like Eucalyptus, Allocasuarina and the pea-flowered legumes, the development of open forest.
Collision with the Eurasian Plate led to additional South-east Asian and cosmopolitan elements entering the flora like the Lepidium and Chenopodioideae. The development of aridity and the old and nutrient poor soils of the continent led to some unique adaptations in the Australian flora and evolutionary radiation of genera – like Acacia and Eucalyptus – that adapted to those conditions. Hard leaves with a thick outer layer, a condition known as scleromorphy, C4 and CAM carbon fixation which reduce water loss during photosynthesis are two common adaptations in Australian arid-adapted dicot and monocot species respectively. Rising aridity increased the frequency of fires in Australia. Fire is thought to have played a role in the development and distribution of fire-adapted species from the Late Pleistocene. An increase in charcoal in sediment around 38,000 years ago coincides with dates for the inhabitation of Australia by the Indigenous Australians and suggests that man-made fires, from practices like fire-stick farming, have played an important role in the establishment and maintenance of sclerophyll forest on the east coast of Australia.
Adaptations to fire include lignotubers and epicormic buds in Eucalyptus and Banksia species that allow fast regeneration following fire. Some genera exhibit serotiny, the release of seed only in response to heat and/or smoke. Xanthorrhoea grass trees and some species of orchids only flower after fire. In biogeography and zoogeography, Australia alone is sometimes considered a realm, while some authors unite the area with other regions to form the Australasian realm. In phytogeography, the area is considered a floristic kingdom, with the following endemic families, according to Takhtajan: Platyzomataceae, Austrobaileyaceae, Gyrostemonaceae, Davidsoniaceae, Eremosynaceae, Emblingiaceae, Tremandraceae, Brunoniaceae, Doryanthaceae and Xanthorrhoeaceae, it is the center of origin of Eupomatiaceae, Epacridaceae, Stackhousiaceae and Goodeniaceae. Other families with high occurrences are Poaceae, Asteraceae, Euphorbiaceae, Rutaceae and Proteaceae. Australia's terrestrial flora can be collected into characteristic vegetation groups.
The most important determinant is rainfall, followed by temperature which affects water availability. Several schemes of varying complexity have been created, the most recent scheme developed by the Natural Heritage Trust divides Australia's terrestrial flora into 30 Major Vegetation Groups, 67 Major Vegetation Subgroups. According to the scheme the most common vegetation types are those that are adapted to arid conditions where the area has not been reduced by human activities such as land clearing for agriculture; the dominant vegetation type in Australia is the hummock grasslands that occur extensively in arid Western Australia, South Australia and the Northern Territory. It accounts for 23% of the native vegetation, the predominant species of which are from the genus Triodia. Zygochloa occurs in inland sandy areas like the Simpson Desert. A furt
Botanical garden
A botanical garden or botanic garden is a garden dedicated to the collection, cultivation and display of a wide range of plants labelled with their botanical names. It may contain specialist plant collections such as cacti and other succulent plants, herb gardens, plants from particular parts of the world, so on. Visitor services at a botanical garden might include tours, educational displays, art exhibitions, book rooms, open-air theatrical and musical performances, other entertainment. Botanical gardens are run by universities or other scientific research organizations, have associated herbaria and research programmes in plant taxonomy or some other aspect of botanical science. In principle, their role is to maintain documented collections of living plants for the purposes of scientific research, conservation and education, although this will depend on the resources available and the special interests pursued at each particular garden; the origin of modern botanical gardens is traced to the appointment of professors of botany to the medical faculties of universities in 16th century Renaissance Italy, which entailed the curation of a medicinal garden.
However, the objectives and audience of today’s botanic gardens more resembles that of the grandiose gardens of antiquity and the educational garden of Theophrastus in the Lyceum of ancient Athens. The early concern with medicinal plants changed in the 17th century to an interest in the new plant imports from explorations outside Europe as botany established its independence from medicine. In the 18th century, systems of nomenclature and classification were devised by botanists working in the herbaria and universities associated with the gardens, these systems being displayed in the gardens as educational "order beds". With the rapid rise of European imperialism in the late 18th century, botanic gardens were established in the tropics, economic botany became a focus with the hub at the Royal Botanic Gardens, near London. Over the years, botanical gardens, as cultural and scientific organisations, have responded to the interests of botany and horticulture. Nowadays, most botanical gardens display.
The role of major botanical gardens worldwide has been considered so broadly similar as to fall within textbook definitions. The following definition was produced by staff of the Liberty Hyde Bailey Hortorium of Cornell University in 1976, it covers in some detail the many functions and activities associated with botanical gardens: A botanical garden is a controlled and staffed institution for the maintenance of a living collection of plants under scientific management for purposes of education and research, together with such libraries, herbaria and museums as are essential to its particular undertakings. Each botanical garden develops its own special fields of interests depending on its personnel, extent, available funds, the terms of its charter, it may include greenhouses, test grounds, an herbarium, an arboretum, other departments. It maintains a scientific as well as a plant-growing staff, publication is one of its major modes of expression; this broad outline is expanded: The botanic garden may be an independent institution, a governmental operation, or affiliated to a college or university.
If a department of an educational institution, it may be related to a teaching program. In any case, it is not to be restricted or diverted by other demands, it is not a landscaped or ornamental garden, although it may be artistic, nor is it an experiment station or yet a park with labels on the plants. The essential element is the intention of the enterprise, the acquisition and dissemination of botanical knowledge. A contemporary botanic garden is a protected natural urban green area, where a managing organization creates landscaped gardens and holds documented collections of living plants and/or preserved plant accessions containing functional units of heredity of actual or potential value for purposes such as scientific research, public display, sustainable use and recreational activities, production of marketable plant-based products and services for improvement of human well-being; the "New Royal Horticultural Society Dictionary of Gardening" points out that among the various kinds of organisations now known as botanical gardens are many public gardens with little scientific activity, it cites a more abbreviated definition, published by the World Wildlife Fund and IUCN when launching the ’’Botanic Gardens Conservation Strategy’’ in 1989: "A botanic garden is a garden containing scientifically ordered and maintained collections of plants documented and labelled, open to the public for the purposes of recreation and research."
This has been further reduced by Botanic Gardens Conservation International to the following definition which "encompasses the spirit of a true botanic garden": "A botanic garden is an institution holding documented collections of living plants for the purposes of scientific research, conservation and education." Worldwide, there are now about 1800 botanical gardens and arboreta in about 150 countries of which about 550 are in Europe, 2
Tree
In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, supporting branches and leaves in most species. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, including only woody plants with secondary growth, plants that are usable as lumber or plants above a specified height. Trees are not a taxonomic group but include a variety of plant species that have independently evolved a woody trunk and branches as a way to tower above other plants to compete for sunlight. Trees tend to be long-lived, some reaching several thousand years old. In wider definitions, the taller palms, tree ferns and bamboos are trees. Trees have been in existence for 370 million years, it is estimated. A tree has many secondary branches supported clear of the ground by the trunk; this trunk contains woody tissue for strength, vascular tissue to carry materials from one part of the tree to another. For most trees it is surrounded by a layer of bark. Below the ground, the roots spread out widely. Above ground, the branches divide into smaller shoots.
The shoots bear leaves, which capture light energy and convert it into sugars by photosynthesis, providing the food for the tree's growth and development. Trees reproduce using seeds. Flowers and fruit may be present, but some trees, such as conifers, instead have pollen cones and seed cones. Palms and bamboos produce seeds, but tree ferns produce spores instead. Trees play a significant role in moderating the climate, they remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store large quantities of carbon in their tissues. Trees and forests provide a habitat for many species of plants. Tropical rainforests are among the most biodiverse habitats in the world. Trees provide shade and shelter, timber for construction, fuel for cooking and heating, fruit for food as well as having many other uses. In parts of the world, forests are shrinking as trees are cleared to increase the amount of land available for agriculture; because of their longevity and usefulness, trees have always been revered, with sacred groves in various cultures, they play a role in many of the world's mythologies.
Although "tree" is a term of common parlance, there is no universally recognised precise definition of what a tree is, either botanically or in common language. In its broadest sense, a tree is any plant with the general form of an elongated stem, or trunk, which supports the photosynthetic leaves or branches at some distance above the ground. Trees are typically defined by height, with smaller plants from 0.5 to 10 m being called shrubs, so the minimum height of a tree is only loosely defined. Large herbaceous plants such as papaya and bananas are trees in this broad sense. A applied narrower definition is that a tree has a woody trunk formed by secondary growth, meaning that the trunk thickens each year by growing outwards, in addition to the primary upwards growth from the growing tip. Under such a definition, herbaceous plants such as palms and papayas are not considered trees regardless of their height, growth form or stem girth. Certain monocots may be considered trees under a looser definition.
Aside from structural definitions, trees are defined by use. The tree growth habit is an evolutionary adaptation found in different groups of plants: by growing taller, trees are able to compete better for sunlight. Trees tend some reaching several thousand years old. Several trees are among the oldest organisms now living. Trees have modified structures such as thicker stems composed of specialised cells that add structural strength and durability, allowing them to grow taller than many other plants and to spread out their foliage, they differ from shrubs, which have a similar growth form, by growing larger and having a single main stem. The tree form has evolved separately in unrelated classes of plants in response to similar environmental challenges, making it a classic example of parallel evolution. With an estimated 60,000-100,000 species, the number of trees worldwide might total twenty-five per cent of all living plant species; the greatest number of these grow in tropical regions and many of these areas have not yet been surveyed by botanists, making tree diversity and ranges poorly known.
The majority of tree species are angiosperms. There are about 1000 species of gymnosperm trees, including conifers, cycads and gnetales. Most angiosperm trees are eudicots, the "true dicotyledons", so named because the seeds contain two cotyledons or seed leaves. There are some trees among the old lineages of flowering plants called basal angiosperms or paleodicots. Wood gives structural strength to the trunk of most types of tree; the vascular system of trees allows water and other chemicals to be di
Wildfire
A wildfire or wildland fire is a fire in an area of combustible vegetation occurring in rural areas. Depending on the type of vegetation present, a wildfire can be classified more as a brush fire, desert fire, forest fire, grass fire, hill fire, peat fire, vegetation fire, or veld fire. Fossil charcoal indicates that wildfires began soon after the appearance of terrestrial plants 420 million years ago. Wildfire's occurrence throughout the history of terrestrial life invites conjecture that fire must have had pronounced evolutionary effects on most ecosystems' flora and fauna. Earth is an intrinsically flammable planet owing to its cover of carbon-rich vegetation, seasonally dry climates, atmospheric oxygen, widespread lightning and volcanic ignitions. Wildfires can be characterized in terms of the cause of ignition, their physical properties, the combustible material present, the effect of weather on the fire. Wildfires can cause damage to property and human life, although occurring wildfires may have beneficial effects on native vegetation and ecosystems that have evolved with fire.
High-severity wildfire creates complex early seral forest habitat, which has higher species richness and diversity than unburned old forest. Many plant species depend on the effects of fire for reproduction. Wildfires in ecosystems where wildfire is uncommon or where non-native vegetation has encroached may have negative ecological effects. Wildfire behavior and severity result from a combination of factors such as available fuels, physical setting, weather. Analyses of historical meteorological data and national fire records in western North America show the primacy of climate in driving large regional fires via wet periods that create substantial fuels, or drought and warming that extend conducive fire weather. Strategies for wildfire prevention and suppression have varied over the years. One common and inexpensive technique is controlled burning: intentionally igniting smaller fires to minimize the amount of flammable material available for a potential wildfire. Vegetation may be burned periodically to maintain high species diversity and limit the accumulation of plants and other debris that may serve as fuel.
Wildland fire use is the cheapest and most ecologically appropriate policy for many forests. Fuels may be removed by logging, but fuels treatments and thinning have no effect on severe fire behavior when under extreme weather conditions. Wildfire itself is "the most effective treatment for reducing a fire's rate of spread, fireline intensity, flame length, heat per unit of area", according to Jan Van Wagtendonk, a biologist at the Yellowstone Field Station. Building codes in fire-prone areas require that structures be built of flame-resistant materials and a defensible space be maintained by clearing flammable materials within a prescribed distance from the structure. Three major natural causes of wildfire ignitions exist: dry climate lightning volcanic eruptionThe most common direct human causes of wildfire ignition include arson, discarded cigarettes, power-lines arcs, sparks from equipment. Ignition of wildland fires via contact with hot rifle-bullet fragments is possible under the right conditions.
Wildfires can be started in communities experiencing shifting cultivation, where land is cleared and farmed until the soil loses fertility, slash and burn clearing. Forested areas cleared by logging encourage the dominance of flammable grasses, abandoned logging roads overgrown by vegetation may act as fire corridors. Annual grassland fires in southern Vietnam stem in part from the destruction of forested areas by US military herbicides and mechanical land-clearing and -burning operations during the Vietnam War; the most common cause of wildfires varies throughout the world. In Canada and northwest China, lightning operates as the major source of ignition. In other parts of the world, human involvement is a major contributor. In Africa, Central America, Mexico, New Zealand, South America, Southeast Asia, wildfires can be attributed to human activities such as agriculture, animal husbandry, land-conversion burning. In China and in the Mediterranean Basin, human carelessness is a major cause of wildfires.
In the United States and Australia, the source of wildfires can be traced both to lightning strikes and to human activities. Coal seam fires burn in the thousands around the world, such as those in Burning Mountain, New South Wales, they can flare up unexpectedly and ignite nearby flammable material. The spread of wildfires varies based on the flammable material present, its vertical arrangement and moisture content, weather conditions. Fuel arrangement and density is governed in part by topography, as land shape determines factors such as available sunlight and water for plant growth. Overall, fire types can be characterized by their fuels as follows: Ground fires are fed by subterranean roots and other buried organic matter; this fuel type is susceptible to ignition due to spotting. Ground fires burn by smoldering, can burn for days to months, such as peat fires in Kalimantan and Eastern Sumatra, which resulted from a riceland creation project that unintentionally drained and dried the peat.
Crawling or surface fires are fueled by low-lying vegetation on the forest floor such as leaf and timber litter, debris and low-lying shrubbery. This kind of fire burns at a lower temperature than crown fires and may spread
