The Green Planet

The Green Planet episode 5: We rely on plants for almost everything, including the air we breathe and the food we eat. Two in five wild plants are threatened with extinction, but people are finding new ways to help them, from projects in Africa to reseed the landscape to the rebuilding of a tropical forest in Brazil, tree by tree. […]

The Green Planet episode 4: Deserts are hostile – temperatures soar and water is rare. Yet plants find extraordinary ways to survive. They may grow imperceptibly slowly or travel the landscape looking for water. Others wait decades in suspended animation for rain to power an explosion of colour across the dunes.     Desert plants protect their water stores from

The Green Planet episode 3: Plants of the seasonal world face constant change. They use use strategy, deception and feats of engineering to survive. Most importantly, they must get their timing right.     Between the tropics and the frozen poles lies a region dominated by relentless change in the form of the four seasons: spring, summer, autumn and winter.

The Green Planet episode 2: Water plants create some of the most beautiful, bizarre and important habitats on earth. To hold on in torrents, plants use a kind of superglue. Some are armed with vicious weapons to fight titanic battles for space. Others form perfect spheres and escape from animal enemies by rolling. Where nutrients are washed away, plants turn

The Green Planet episode 1: More kinds of plants are crammed together in the tropical rainforests than anywhere else on Earth. The result is astonishing beauty and intense competition – a plant battleground. New filming techniques allow us to enter the plants’ world and see it from their perspective and on their timescale. From fast-growing trees to flowers that mimic