When studying plants, plant geographers tend to focus on the general plant cover in a space by looking at life-forms.
A life-form is defined as a plant’s function in an ecosystem, which can include how a plant’s size, shape, and physical structure impacts its ecosystem function. Instead of using species identification, a life-form is an alternate way to classify plants.
This blog post will be focusing on the types of life-forms that may be found in the moist forest layer, such as trees, shrubs, herbs, and lianas, and quick overview on how they are structured.
Keep in mind that different groups may classify the structure of a forest in various ways other than the ways I list below.