Biology, Module 14, Kingdom Plantae: Anatomy and Classification

Several videos from this post have been deleted from youtube.  I will try to find replacements as we go through Biology again this fall.  I am just so busy that I will not able to do it any earlier.  It can be difficult to keep all posts updated at all times, but I sure do wish I could!
I am sorry for any inconvenience, but if you find any suitable replacements, please do email me!
Thank you!


M14 Recap blog post at Sahm-I-Am
Quizlet Vocabulary Game, M14 


(1) p. 429-430, Basic Plant Anatomy
Perennials aren't perennials everywhere.

Four basic types of plant tissue:
1. ground tissue - the most common tissue in plants
2. dermal tissue (like epidermis - your skin)
3. vascular tissue - a "bundle" that contains the xylem and phloem (like veins)
♦The vascular tissue (contains xylem and phloem) can appear differently, depending on if the plant is a dicot or a monocot.
4. meristematic tissue contains cells that have not specialized in any particular function.
(See this image with 3 of the 4 tissues)

Xylem and Phloem  (zy' lum, flow' um)
♦Xylem and phloem tubes are together in a vein, or a vascular bundle.
If you look at the bottom of a stalk of celery, you will see these.  They look like strings, and both xylem and phloem are bundled together, like wires through a power cord.
(See bundles of xylem and phloem, and ground tissue in celery)
♦ The xylem transports water and minerals UP the roots to the leaves where the chlorophyll is located, in order to make food for the plant.
Xylem is dead tissue.
♦ The phloem transports food (sugars) back DOWN the leaves, then to all the rest of the parts of the plant.

The xylem and phloem are in vascular bundles in both dicot and monocot plants.
The words dicotyledon and monocotyledon tell how many cotyledons the plants have.  A cotyledon is the part of the seed that contains "starter food" for the plant. 
A seed with two cotyledons (like a bean) can be split into two pieces.
(Images of a dicot and a monocot seed)

►In this video about xylem and phloem, he talks about the vascular cambium that divides the phloem and the xylem.  So he is talking about a dicot (or dicotyledon).


[Video has been deleted from youtube.]




(2) p. 431-435, The Macroscopic Structure of a Leaf
Monocots (monocotyledons)


Dicots (Dicotyledons) have woody stems.  Trees have woody stems.



►See several labeled images here.

►A great site that classifies leaves.  (Also read the paragraph about bark)
• Scroll down and see what kinds of fruits there are, including nuts.
• These are important to think about when classifying leaves in class.



(3) p. 435-436, Experiment 14.1, Leaf Collection and Observation
Do the experiment as written, but here are two sites to help with tree identification.
► Keys to Leaves of Virginia, (4H) I've got my leaf; let's get started!
► Auburn University Horticulture Dept, Plant Identification Resource



(4) p. 436-438, The Microscopic Structure of a Leaf
The microscopic structure is what you cannot see with the naked eye.

►Image of what is inside a leaf.

►Click here and see a drawing of guard cells.
More images.
•The stomata (singular - stoma) are openings that allow carbon dioxide to enter the plant and oxygen to exit the plant, as well as the release of water vapor.
•A pair of guard cells open and close the stoma to control this process.  They open or close depending on if the vacuoles are full of water or not.  (Remember from p. 169 that turgor pressure from being full of water helps keep a plant rigid.  The same applies to guard cells.)
Stomata are usually open during the day during photosynthesis, and closed at night.  Sometimes stomata close during the day if it is too hot and the plant starts losing too much moisture.  At these times, photosynthesis ceases.

Transpiration - how water and minerals are transported up the xylem (which is dead tissue).



Parenchyma = all the palisade parenchyma and spongy parenchyma.
Also called palisade mesophyll and spongy mesophyll. 
See the two images here -- one calls it mesophyll; one calls it parenchyma.

"Collenchyma is made  up of thick-walled cells that support the vein.  Towards the end of the leaf, the veins get so small that there is no collenchyma anymore."
-Apologia Biology, p. 438

• Dermal tissue (like epidermis - skin), Vascular tissue (like veins), Ground tissue (everything else)
• Perenchyma (palisade and spongy layers) and collenchyma (think of a stalk of celery, but in leaves, much smaller, and thins out to nothing toward the end of the leaf)



[Video has been deleted from youtube.]



Cytoplasmic Streaming is the movement of the cell's cytoplasm, transporting things such as nutrients, proteins, etc.  (remember, cyto means cell) "The chloroplasts in cells are constantly moving due to cytoplasmic streaming."
-Apologia Biology, p. 437





(5) p. 438-442, Leaf Color
You probably know that leaves look green because of chlorophyll.  (If you're in my science class, you better know!)  =D  But you may not know that the chlorophyll masks other colors that are present in the leaf, so the leaf appears green. 
In the fall when the leaves turn, you see these other colors.  But some leaves are never completely green.  They may appear more white than green, or purple, and some have a little pink, especially along the veins.
♦ If the leaf has an abscission layer, in the fall when there is less sunlight hours in the day, the cells in this layer start blocking the xylem and phloem.  Read more on p. 441.  =)
I'm sure you can figure out that "evergreens" do not have an abscission layer.

►For Experiment 14.2, read and watch the video of Purple, Green, Pink, and Back at Applie's Place.
►I opted not to do this experiment.  I'll just discuss it during class since we have already done some color changing using red/purple cabbage juice while studying Ph levels in Module 5.
• See our videos of Ph level testing.  Scroll down.




(6) p. 442-445, Roots
Ignore the part about roots being "adapted" to their environment.  God knew what he was doing to begin with, and it does not need to adapt.  If this were true, then my plants would not die when I plant them in the wrong place where there is not enough or too much sun, water, etc.  This is also why my daughters take care of the plants around the house instead of me.  Plants just don't adapt to the conditions I put them in, lol.  =D
Roots, xylem, phloem, vascular cambium, dicots, monocots, etc.







(7) p. 446-449, Stems
The words dicotyledon and monocotyledon tell how many cotyledons the plants have.  
A cotyledon is the part of the seed that contains "starter food" for the plant. 
Comparison of monocotyledons (monocots) and dicotyledons (dicots).



[Video has been deleted from youtube.]



►Monocots vs. Dicots  Scroll down and see much more!
►Cross-section of a leaf, and more about monocots and dicots.

(8) p. 449-451, Experiment 14.3, Cross Sections of Roots, Stems, and a Leaf
Do not do this experiment unless you have read and done all the On Your Own questions up through this section.  If you have not watched all the videos, please do that now.

Corn is a monocot.   Monocotyledon means there is one cotyledon.
Buttercups are dicots. Dicotyledon means there are two cotyledons.
A seed with two cotyledons (like a bean) can be split into two pieces.
►My class, follow directions on handout, and use these links.
Most all the small pictures will enlarge when clicked.  
A.  Cross section of leaf
B.  Lateral cross section of a buttercup root (Ranunculus) (top three pictures)
C.  Lateral cross section of a corn root (Zea mays)
►A link for both corn root ↑ and ↓ corn stem, root on the left, stem on the right.  Note the difference. 
D.  Lateral cross section of a corn stem (Zea mays)  These look to me like skeletons.  The textbook called them monkey faces, and the person who posted these pictures called them creepy or angry.  lol.
The herbaceous stems of monocots appear this way because of the placement of xylem and phloem within the fibrovascular bundle.
E.  Lateral cross section of a buttercup stem (Ranunculus) (a little over halfway down on the right)

►Also, you can see Julie's post.  She has a very good microscope, and a steady hand.
Her pictures are in the same order that I have them listed above, and in the book:
Leaf, Ranunculus root, Zea Mays root, Zea Mays stem, Ranunculus stem.




(9) p. 452-454, The Bryophytes (nonvascular plants - no xylem and phloem)
These plants cannot grow very tall.  They do not have xylem and phloem to transport water and minerals, etc, to all parts of the plant.
One such plant is moss. Moss has leafy shoots and rhizoids. (Remember rhizoids from Module 4?  There are a few other words in this module that were also mentioned in M4.  Might be worth a quick review.)
►The life cycle of mosses is called alternation of generations.
This means there is both a haploid form and a diploid form.  (You can review these terms in Module 7)
1) During the gametophyte generation is when moss is in its haploid form, in which sperm and eggs are made through mitosis.  This is the form with which we are more familiar.
2) "When fertilization takes place, the result is a diploid zygote, which develops into the sporophyte generation."
-Apologia Biology, p. 453  
"Then they form leafy shoots again, which are part of the gametophyte generation."
"The generations alternate between haploid and diploid."
"Since the leafy shoot is what we typically see when we examine mosses, we say that the gametophyte is the dominant generation.
-Apologia Biology, p. 454
Life Cycle of Mosses - alteration of generations.

(10) p. 455-456, Seedless Vascular Plants
Plants with vascular tissues can grow to be quite large.  Sequoia trees in California can grow to be really large!

Some vascular plants are seedless.
The members of the phylum Pterophyta are called ferns.  Ferns can grow from the ground, or attach themselves to a tree, or even grow so large that they look like a tree!
Like mosses, ferns have an alteration of generations lifestyle.







(11) p. 457-458, Seed-Making Plants
Phylum Coniferophyta
Reproduction of a conifer (cone-bearing trees)