Plant crossing

If you are visiting the UK you might see a road sign saying something like “Caution: Heavy plant crossing”. I saw this one in Wales – the warning is in both Welsh and English.

But what does it mean?

A plant is a living thing that grows in the ground. It usually has roots, a stem and leaves. It might also have flowers and produce fruits and seeds.

So, what is this sign warning us about? A huge tomato plant crossing the road perhaps?

A plant can also be a place where things are made. So perhaps it’s a shoe factory that we should be looking out for as we walk or drive along the road. That sounds a bit unlikely as well.

That’s a bit unlikely as well.

We also use “plant” to mean an item of heavy machinery used for building roads, for example. This is the meaning of the road sign. If we see a sign warning us that heavy plant might be crossing the road, it probably means that there are roadworks going on and the machinery is likely to be moving around and causing delays to traffic.

“Plant” is also used as a verb – most usually in connection with growing things. We plant things is the garden to make it look attractive or to provide us with vegetables. But it can also mean that something has been put somewhere in secret. A terrorist might “plant” a bomb, for example – not to grow but to destroy something. Or a criminal might plant stolen goods so that someone else gets the blame. When something has been planted, we might call it “a plant”.

Posted by Graham