As you make a trip towards the equator you travel though five different kinds of habitat, each one with its own set of environmental conditions.

The land habitat closest to the North Pole is the tundra. Here the winters are long, cold and harsh and the summers are cool and short. The plants that grow in the tundra stay close to the ground so they avoid the strong winds with their billions of sharp, stem-cutting ice crystals. In the short summer the plants produce their flowers and set seed quickly before winter returns.

As you come south to the edge of the tundra you enter the coniferous forest habitat. Here the winters are shorter and the summers are longer than in the tundra but there are long periods of cold windy and snowy conditions. The trees are adapted to the wind by having flexible trunks and branches. These bend as the wind increases in strength and do not snap like the trunks and branches of broadleaved trees. Coniferous trees are evergreen. They stay in leaf all year round so that they can make food whenever there is enough light. If snow covers the trees it stops light reaching the leaves so the tree is adapted to cope with this by having wax leaves and flexible twigs. As the snow builds up on the leaves, the twigs bend down. This makes the snow slip off the waxy surfaces of the leaves so that light can reach them and the leaves can make food.

When you leave the coniferous forest you enter woodlands made by broadleaved trees. The summers are longer and warmer here and the winters are shorter and less harsh. The broadleaved trees have adapted to these conditions by producing a large number of broad flat leaves for catching sunlight. They use these leaves throughout the summer to make a huge amount of food which is stored in the wood. The leaves are shed in the fall and the tree lives on its food store through the winter then sends out new leaves in the following spring.

As you approach the equator the weather becomes much hotter and drier. These environmental conditions produce deserts. There may be long periods when no rain falls then a short period of rain before another long dry period. The plants that live in deserts are adapted to these conditions by having long roots to search and collect as much water as they can. They also store the water in a part of their body such as the root or stem.

At the equator the weather is very hot and wet all through year. These are ideal conditions for plant growth and large numbers of plants thrive together in rainforests. The trees in a rainforest are adapted to the conditions by having long, straight, fast growing trunks that are topped with a crown of leafy branches.