Plants that use allelopathy

There are many kinds of plants with allelopathic powers. Do you think you could find any allelopaths growing near where you live? What do you think that these trees would look like? Would they be tall and wide, or short and thin?

Here are some pictures of plants that use allelopathy. As you can see, these plants come in all shapes and sizes. Some plants to look for are black walnuts, sunflowers, wormwoods, sagebrushes, and trees of heaven.


This picture is of a black walnut tree. You can see that this tree can grow up to be really tall.

This is a picture of a black walnut tree's seed case. The seeds are stored in a protective shell that gives the growing sprout the food it needs at the very beginning of the tree's life.

Here is another picture of the seed and leaves of the black walnut tree. What do you think the green seed shell does to protect the new baby tree?

This is a picture of a tree of heaven. It is smaller than the black walnut, and it produces small white flowers. What do you think this tree does to protect itself?

This is a close-up of the flowers that grow on the tree of heaven.

Now that you know more about allelopathy, you can go outside and look at the trees around you. Can you identify an allelopathic tree in your neighborhood? What does the ground under the tree look like?

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