Plant Kingdom Lecture Review

Vocabulary-style flashcards covering the classification systems and the major groups of the Plant Kingdom including Algae, Bryophytes, Pteridophytes, Gymnosperms, and Angiosperms based on the lecture transcript.

Artificial Classification Systems

Earliest systems using only gross superficial morphological characters such as habit, colour, and number of leaves, often based on vegetative characters or androecium structure.

Natural Classification Systems

Systems based on natural affinities among organisms, considering external and internal features like ultra-structure, anatomy, embryology, and phytochemistry.

George Bentham and Joseph Dalton Hooker

The scientists who gave the natural classification system for flowering plants.

Phylogenetic Classification Systems

Systems based on evolutionary relationships between various organisms, assuming a common ancestor for organisms in the same taxa.

Numerical Taxonomy

Classification easily carried out using computers, based on all observable characteristics where numbers and codes are assigned to data.

Cytotaxonomy

Classification based on cytological information such as chromosome number, structure, and behaviour.

Chemotaxonomy

Classification that uses the chemical constituents of the plant to resolve confusions.

Algae

Chlorophyll-bearing, simple, thalloid, autotrophic, and largely aquatic organisms.

Isogamous

Reproduction involving the fusion of two gametes that are similar in size, such as in Ulothrix or Spirogyra.

Anisogamous

Reproduction involving the fusion of two gametes dissimilar in size, as seen in species of Eudorina.

Oogamous

Fusion between one large, non-motile (static) female gamete and a smaller, motile male gamete, e.g., Volvox and Fucus.

Hydrocolloids

Water-holding substances produced by marine algae, such as algin (brown algae) and carrageen (red algae).

Agar

A commercial product obtained from Gelidium and Gracilaria used to grow microbes and in ice-creams and jellies.

Chlorophyceae

Commonly called green algae, they possess chlorophyll a and b and have cell walls made of cellulose and pectose.

Pyrenoids

Storage bodies located in the chloroplasts of green algae that contain protein besides starch.

Phaeophyceae

Commonly called brown algae, they possess chlorophyll a, c, carotenoids, and the xanthophyll pigment fucoxanthin.

Mannitol and Laminarin

The complex carbohydrates in which food is stored in Phaeophyceae (brown algae).

Frond

The leaf-like photosynthetic organ found in brown algae.

Rhodophyceae

Commonly called red algae due to the predominance of the red pigment r-phycoerythrin.

Floridean Starch

Stored food in red algae which is very similar to amylopectin and glycogen in structure.

Bryophytes

Known as 'amphibians of the plant kingdom' because they live in soil but depend on water for sexual reproduction.

Gametophyte

The haploid, gamete-producing main plant body typical of bryophytes.

Antheridium

The multicellular male sex organ in bryophytes that produces biflagellate antherozoids.

Archegonium

The flask-shaped multicellular female sex organ in bryophytes that produces a single egg.

Gemmae

Green, multicellular, asexual buds in liverworts that develop in small receptacles called gemma cups.

Protonema Stage

The first stage of the moss life cycle, developing from a spore as a green, branched, and frequently filamentous stage.

Pteridophytes

The first terrestrial plants to possess vascular tissues (xylem and phloem), including horsetails and ferns.

Prothallus

The inconspicuous, small, multicellular, free-living, mostly photosynthetic thalloid gametophyte of pteridophytes.

Heterosporous

Plants that produce two kinds of spores, macro (large) and micro (small), such as Selaginella and Salvinia.

Gymnosperms

Plants with 'naked' seeds where ovules are not enclosed by an ovary wall before or after fertilisation.

Coralloid Roots

Specialised roots in Cycas associated with $N_2$-fixing cyanobacteria.

Mycorrhiza

A fungal association found in the roots of certain gymnosperms like Pinus.

Pollen Grain

The highly reduced male gametophyte generation in gymnosperms.

Angiosperms

Flowering plants in which pollen grains and ovules develop in specialised structures called flowers and seeds are enclosed in fruits.

Wolffia

Recognized as the smallest genus within the angiosperms.