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Welcome to The Regenerators.

We may be used to seeing Sir David Attenborough sharing the ways and wonders of animal life with TV viewers - but in a new ����ý One series he focuses on something altogether different.

The Green Planet looks at the relationships plants share with the world around them. As we have come to expect from these natural history series, the team behind it travelled all over the world to capture remarkable footage of flowers, cacti, trees and leaves behaving in ways we might not expect. The Regenerators from ����ý Bitesize can share some of those images here, as well as the stories behind them.

The biggest flower in the world

In Borneo - the largest island in Asia - a plant grows which has no stem, or leaves, and looks a little like a prop from a 1980s sci-fi movie. The corpse flower, also called Rafflesia, is the world’s biggest, measuring 1m (around 3ft 3in) across in some cases.

It may not look like the plants growing in our flowerbeds or window boxes, but that is part of the corpse flower's design. It deliberately mimics the dead body of an animal (including the smell), in the hope it will attract an insect called the carrion fly, which lays its eggs on dead flesh.

As The Green Planet shows, when the fly is searching inside the corpse flower, the plant attaches pollen to its back, which the insect will carry to the next Rafflesia flower as part of pollination.

A little help from some friends

Plants often rely on birds, insects, other animals or the wind to carry pollen around. Sometimes, humans will step in and plant seeds themselves - even in unusual ways.

An initiative in Kenya has seen children planting new trees while having fun at the same time, as The Green Planet shows.

The tiny black balls fired from their catapults contain seeds of the acacia tree. Young people fire them by catapult into the landscape around them to encourage the trees to grow. The black coating on these balls of seeds serves a double purpose too. It's a charcoal powder, which stops other animals eating the seeds before they can germinate and also contains nutrients which helps them to grow.

The tree which lights up the dark

You might need a second look at the picture below to check that it’s really a tree.

This is a scene from Costa Rica, where a fungus which digests the organic matter of the tree creates a green glow as it does so. This is known to scientists as bioluminescence but people around the world have different names for it. For example, in Africa it is known as Chimpanzee Fire.

In some cases, the light is created by enzymes from fungus digesting the waste from the forest floor - such as old leaves. Without it, that organic waste could pile up higher than the trees themselves.

Revisiting an old acquaintance

Sir David Attenborough’s career as a natural history broadcaster has seen him criss-cross the planet so much, you’d be forgiven for thinking he never visits the same place twice.

For The Green Planet, he did go back to the scene of a previous natural history film but this wasn’t down to a lack of inspiration - far from it - rather to prove an important point.

In 1982, Sir David showed the audience a creosote bush in the Mojave desert of California that was more than 10,000 years old. Almost 40 years later, he returned to the same bush for The Green Planet, to show how slowly these plants can grow. It was a good example to choose - the bush in question had grown less than an inch in close to four decades (around 2.5cm).

Out of the ashes

A burst of colour in a desolate landscape, these are fire lilies. In the days after fire sweeps through parts of South Africa, they are the first flowers to sprout in the bleak surroundings.

As well as looking beautiful, and standing out in contrast to the grey, this is also a handy survival technique. By beating the other plants to the surface, these will be the only flowers coming to the attention of the creatures which act as pollinators.

Get yourself a ladder or three

Crews on The Green Planet have the latest filming technology to hand to capture footage of plants in action. Sometimes, you have to go a bit old school, however - especially when faced with an incredibly tall cactus.

In order to show the impressive scale of a giant Saguaro cactus, camera operator Robin Cox made sure he was high enough by using a tripod made up of three ladders.

These huge succulents can store 5,000 litres (around 1,100 gallons) of water when they are mature, just like a water butt in a garden. When the rains hit, the Saguaro absorbs the water. The ridges which run from the top to the bottom of the cactus act like the bellows on an accordion. As the internal ‘tank’ fills up, they flatten out - allowing the cactus to expand and take in as much water as possible.

Help 7-11 year olds learn more about plants with The Regenerators – The Green Planet Live Lesson.

The Green Planet is on ����ý One. You can also follow the series on iPlayer.

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