Center of origin

Okay kiddo, have you ever planted a seed and watched it grow into a plant? Well, imagine that all plants come from a special place where they first started growing like that, just like you might have first learned how to play with a toy from a certain friend's house. This special place is called the center of origin.

So, let's say we're talking about apples. A loooong time ago, there were apple trees growing in one place in the world, let's say it was Central Asia. This is where the apple seeds first started growing into trees. From there, people took those apple trees to other places in the world and planted them there. Over a long, long time, the apple trees started growing differently in different parts of the world. Maybe apples in America became bigger and sweeter, while apples in Europe became a different color and shape. But all of these different kinds of apples came from that one center of origin in Central Asia.

The center of origin is like the mommy and daddy of all the different kinds of plants we have today. It's where they first started growing and where they first learned how to be the plants they are today. It's a really important thing to know if we want to understand how plants have changed and how they're connected to each other.