Botany Lecture Notes Review

Flashcards about seedless vascular plants, gymnosperms, and angiosperms.

What types of plants dominated Earth's vegetation long before angiosperms and conifers?

Lycophytes, ferns, and horsetails dominated Earth's vegetation before angiosperms and conifers.

List features of land plants.

Features include a waxy cuticle, multicellular gametangia and sporangia protected by sterile cells, zygotes developing into multicellular embryos, an upright body growing towards light, vascular tissues, sporophyte dominance, branched sporophytes, roots, lignified secondary walls, and xylem and phloem.

What are some characteristics of Lycophytes?

They have microphylls, true roots, and stems.

What were enations originally?

Originally, enations were small, simple flaps of photosynthetic tissue.

Where are sporangia located in Lycopodium and what is their function?

Sporangia are clustered in cones or strobil for protection, developing in the axils of sporophylls.

How many types of spores and sporangia does Selaginella and Isoetes produce?

Two types of spores (megaspores and microspores) are produced from two types of sporangia (megasporangia and microsporangia).

What is unique about Psilotum (whisk ferns)?

Unique among living vascular plants because it has lost the capacity to make roots and leaves.

What are the characteristics of Equisetophyta (horsetails)?

Aerial stems with whorls of fused leaves at the nodes and stems with a hollow pith.

What does ferns sporophytes consist of?

Fronds, rhizomes, and roots.

What is a seed?

An embryo enclosed by nutritive tissue and surrounded by a seed coat.

What are the evolutionary advantages of seeds?

Protection and nutrition of the embryo, dispersal unit, and dormancy mechanisms.

What two types of sporangia do conifers produce arranged in cones?

Pollen cones and seed cones.

What are the characteristics of Phylum Cycadophyta–The Cycads?

Slow-growing plants of tropics and subtropics with tall unbranched trunks.

What is unique about Phylum Ginkgophyta–Ginkgo (maidenhair trees)?

Only one living species: Ginkgo biloba, which only exists in cultivation.

What are the apomorphies (shared new features) of the flowering plants?

Flowers (generally with a perianth), stamens, male gametophytes (3 nucleate), carpel and fruit, ovules with 2 integuments, female gametophytes (2 cells), endosperm and double fertilization, and sieve tube members with companion cells.

What is unique about the angiosperm stamen?

Stamen has 2 thecae, each with 2 microsporangia.

How does pollen differ in wind-pollinated versus insect-pollinated species?

Wind-pollinated species usually produce lightweight, small, smooth pollen, while insect-pollinated species often have sticky or barbed pollen.

What guides bees during pollination and what colors do they see?

Guided by sight and smell. They see yellow and blue colors, as well as ultraviolet light, but cannot see the color red.

What are some characteristics of flowers in the bird pollination?

Flowers tend to be red and yellow and produce large amounts of watery nectar.

What are some characteristics of flowers in the bat pollination?

Be white or dingy colored, strong fragrant, large with a wide bell shape, and have plentiful nectar and pollen.

What are the unique traits in Monocots?

Monocots lack secondary growth and typically produce flower organs in multiples of three.

What are the unique traits in Eudicots?

Tricolpate pollen (pollen with three furrows) and flower parts in multiples of 4s and 5s.

What is the difference between flowers with superior and inferior ovaries?

Superior ovaries sit above the floral parts, while inferior ovaries have fused bases of stamens, petals, and sepals.

What is the definition of Inflorescence?

Group of flowers.

What is placentation?

The attachment of ovules.

What is the difference between true and accessory fruits?

True fruits contain only ovarian tissue, while accessory fruits contain non-ovarian tissue.

What is a berry (fruit)?

Derived from one ovary with a soft pericarp and two or more seeds.

What is a Pepo (fruit)?

Fleshy berry with a hard, leathery rind.

What is a Achene (fruit)?

One seed which is free of the pericarp (fruit wall).

What is a Caryopsis (or grain)?

One seed which has the seed coat fused to the pericarp.

What is a Schizocarp (fruit)?

From a compound pistil, splits into mericarps (pieces) which enclose one or more seeds.

What are Aggregate fruits?

Fruits derived from a flower with more than one pistil.

What are Multiple fruits?

Derived from ovaries of several flowers in an inflorescence.