THE GREEN PLANET

By Jennifer Robinson / Web Producer

Published June 22, 2022 at 1:55 PM PDT

Khasi family using a living root bridge. Meghalaya, India

Encore Thursday, June 13, 2024 at 7 p.m., Tuesday, June 18, Wednesday, June 19, Thursday, June 20 and Friday, June 21 at 4 p.m. on KPBS 2 / Stream the series now with KPBS Passport!

On THE GREEN PLANET, a new five-part documentary series, Sir David Attenborough travels the globe to reveal the secret lives of plants. Using pioneering camera techniques, the series takes viewers on a magical journey inside the hidden world of plants, on which all animals — including humans — are dependent.

Sir David Attenborough travels the globe to reveal the secret lives of plants. Using pioneering camera techniques, the series takes viewers on a magical journey inside the hidden world of plants, on which all animals — including humans — are dependent.

EPISODE GUIDE:

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Episode 1: “Tropical Worlds” Encore Sunday, June 9 at 8 p.m. on KPBS 2 - Sir David Attenborough takes a plants-eye view of life in a rainforest, a world of stunning beauty but also fierce competition. New film techniques allow us to enter their magical world as never before.

The Corpse Flower is more than 3 feet across, blooms for only one week, and smells like a rotting... well, corpse! It's a strategy evolved to lure carrion flies.

Episode 2: “Water Worlds” Encore Sunday, June 9 at 9 p.m. on KPBS 2 - Sir David Attenborough explores bizarre and beautiful water plants, which use nature’s super-glue, counting, and killer spikes to get a leaf up. Some escape from animals by rolling away while others create bubbles in a magical river in Brazil.

The Giant Water Lily expands by over 6 inches a day, and reaches over 6 feet across as it expands to take up as much sunlight as it can.

Episode 3: “Seasonal Worlds” Encore Sunday, June 9 at 10 p.m. on KPBS 2 - Sir David Attenborough reveals the surprising and dramatic effects of the four seasons on plant life. In order to survive the huge challenges each season presents, plants must use strategy, deception and remarkable feats of engineering.

The Hammer Orchid does not look like a flower and has no nectar but also needs to attract a pollinator. This plant's strategy is to synchronize with the mating season of the thynnid wasp, attracting males by emitting a similar scent to that of the female. And since the orchid looks similar to the female, the male it attempts to mate with it.

Episode 4: “Desert Worlds” Encore Thursday, June 20 at 4 p.m. on KPBS 2 - Sir David Attenborough explores the hostile world of the desert, where plants can spend decades waiting for rain or travel to find it. Survival tactics include using weapons, camouflage and forming surprising alliances with animals.

The elephant has a special relationship with the baobab, eating its fruit and spreading its seeds. The elephant also uses this tree as a key water source during migration, using it's water-rich inner wood to quench their thirst on long migrations. This damages the baobab, but it normally regenerates. Global warming has disrupted this cycle.

Episode 5: “Human Worlds” Encore Friday, June 21 at 4 p.m. on KPBS 2 - Sir David Attenborough reveals how humans are helping plants, many of which face extinction. From projects in Africa to re-seeding the landscape to rebuilding a Brazilian rainforest tree by tree, everyone can work to make our world a little wilder.

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Central California is the biggest orchard in the world and almonds are one of its main crops. There are 40 million trees here with 20,000 flowers each, meaning there are billions of flowers in this one location. But there are no pollinators for the job, they were wiped out when the surrounding environment was cleared. So 40 billion bees are trucked in from across the U.S. when the trees bloom.

Watch On Your Schedule: This series is available to stream now with KPBS Passport!

School children firing seed balls (containing Acacia tree seeds Acacia)into the landscape using catapults. Kenya.

Behind the scenes. Camera operator Oliver Mueller uses a specially built robotic camera system, known as the Triffid, to film the corpse flower (Rafflesia keithii), Borneo.

The football sized flower of the giant water lily Victoria species, of the Brazilian Pantanal wetland, turns pink after it has been pollinated.

Sir David Attenborough demonstrates how the fluffy seeds of the Bulrush, Typha latifolia, can be carried on the wind to new bodies of water, where they can germinate. UK.

Saguaro cactus (Carnegiea gigantea), Sonoran desert, Ariz

The flowers of the ‘7-hour flower’, Merinthopodium neuranthom, are pollinated by Underwood's Long-tongued Bat

Honeybee Apis mellifera visits the flower of an Almond tree Prunus dulcis. Central Valley, Calif.

THE GREEN PLANET

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