A growth medium or culture medium is a liquid or gel designed to support the growth of microorganisms or cells, or small plants like the moss Physcomitrella patens. There are different types of media for growing different types of cells.
Best Answer: Reading some arbitrary definition of a crystal might get confusing so I'll simplify it. What you are thinking of are the chemical compound called calcium oxalate.They form needle shaped crystals in a plant cell's vacuole that pretty much look like toothpicks. Their main function is to protect the plant from herbivores.They aren't chemically poisonous but because of their shape, they can prick soft tissue.hen an herbivore eat a part of the plant, the vacuoles are smashed up and these needle like crystals are exposed along with the sap of the plant. Perhaps you've been exposed to these crystals when you squeeze a part of a plant and touch its sap.
Different crystals have different shapes and forms because of the: stacking of the unit cells. internal arrangement of the atoms. the environment in which they grow. Crystal shapes (morphology) can be a valuable tool in mineral identification. The study of crystals and the laws that govern their growth, external shape, and internal structure is called crystallography. A crystal may possess only certain combinations of symmetry elements. Only 32 possibilities exist, and these are the 32 crystal classes that are grouped into six crystal systems. Every mineral belongs to one of these crystal classes. To describe crystals, imaginary lines are used intersecting at 0 (the origin). These are specific to the various crystal systems, intersecting at given angles and being of given lengths specific to each crystal system. To discuss the six crystal systems, we have to describe what are called crystallographic axes. There are three axes: a, b, and c. The axes pass through the center of the crystal, and, by using them, we can describe the intersection of any given face with these three axes.