People like to categorize things. It helps us wrap our minds around this complex world we live in. When it comes to plants, range managers like to categorize them by life form.

Life form just means how the plant grows. There are four major life forms – grasses, forbs, shrubs, and trees.

Almost anyone can recognize a grass, with its linear leaves and fibrous roots. This one is a needle grass.

We call wildflowers, like this yarrow, forbs. Forbs are basically all the non-woody plants out here that aren’t grasses. They tend to have broad leaves and a taproot.

Now we come to the woody plants – the shrubs and trees. What’s the difference between a shrub and a tree? Height, primarily.

But shrubs like this sagebrush also tend to have lots of branches, starting really low on the plant, without any one main stem or trunk.

This aspen tree has a main trunk. It’s also much taller and has much deeper roots than the sagebrush we just looked at.

Knowing what life forms of plants are in an area gives range managers clues about how deep the soil is, how much moisture the area gets, and what kinds of animals might be around. It helps us make sense of the wonderful complexity of the Wyoming landscape.

From the University of Wyoming Cooperative Extension Service, I’m Zola Ryan.