Botany Unit Notes
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Transcript Botany Unit Notes
Botany Unit Notes
Part I
What is a Plant?
When you are asked,
“what color is life?”, the
color that comes to
mind is usually green!
It is no wonder that all
of Earth’s living
systems ultimately
depend upon plants
What is a Plant?
Plants are multicellular eukaryotes
that have cell walls made of cellulose
Many plants undergo photosynthesis
Plants include: trees, shrubs, and
grasses
Also
ferns and mosses
Most are autotrophs except for a few
parasitic plants and saprobes
Saprobes
feed on decaying organic material
What Plants Need to Survive
Sunlight ~ plants use the
energy from the sun to
carry out photosynthesis
Water and Minerals ~ all
cells require water and it is
used during photosynthesis
plants absorb minerals
from the soil needed for
plant growth
What Plants Need to Survive
Gas Exchange ~ plants need Carbon
Dioxide and even Oxygen to carry out
photosynthesis
Movement of Water and Nutrients:
The water and minerals taken up by
the roots of plants needs to be
transported to the structures that
carry out photosynthesis
These are hundreds of feet in the air
sometimes!
The Origin of Plants
It all started in the water
Some scientists believe
that the first plants came
from ancient,
photosynthetic prokaryotes
The oldest known fossils of
plants show them to be
around 500 Million years
old
Green Algae
The Origin of Plants
Overview of the Plant Kingdom
Botanists divide the Plant Kingdom into 4
groups based upon three features:
Water-conducting tissues
Seeds
Flowers
The Four Groups
Cone bearing ~ 760 species
Ferns & their relatives ~ 11,000 species
Mosses & their relatives ~ 15,600 species
Flowering plants ~ 235,000 species
The most abundant plants of today are the flowering plants
making up 90% of all plants on Earth
Overview of the Plant Kingdom
Evolution of Land Plants
As plants evolved they obtained important
traits:
Non-vascular tissues (primitive)
Vascular plants (seedless came first)
Plants that have specialized tissues capable of drawing water
up from the soil through roots (Ferns & horsetails)
Seed producing plants
Early plants that needed to be near water to diffuse it into
their cells (bryophytes: mosses, liverworts, hornworts)
Plants able to protect their young in a durable seed
(Gymnosperms: Cycads, Gnetophytes, Conifers, etc)
Seeds enclosed in fruits (advanced)
Plants that adapted an attractive fruit to have animals
disperse their young (Angiosperms: Grasses, fruit trees,
shrubs, etc)
Seedless Vascular Plants
The first seedless vascular
plants arrived on land around
420 million years ago
The new adaptation of
transporting water and
nutrients through the plant
using vascular tissue allowed
them to grow much taller than
the mosses and other
bryophytes
Vascular Tissues
Vascular tissues allowed
plants to grow taller &
transport water and
nutrients
Xylem moves water up
the plant from the roots
Phloem transports sugars
and nutrients of
photosynthesis down
through the plant
Seedless Vascular Plants
This group contains the club
mosses, horsetails, and ferns
What makes them different from
the earlier plants is that they
have true roots, stems, and
leaves
Club Mosses – Phylum
Lycophyta, millions of years ago
they existed as tall plants towering
over 100 ft!
Today they are small plants living
in moist woodlands
Seedless Vascular Plants
Horsetail – Phylum Arthrophyta
The only living species left of this
phylum
All plants in this Phylum belong to
the Genus Equisetum and has true
roots, leaves, and stems
They reproduce by way of spores
released from specialized structures
They look like tall grasses and are
found near water most often
They
are popular pond plants and used
for decoration in Asian gardens
Seedless Vascular Plants
Ferns are members of
the Phylum Pterophyta
Thought to have begun
around 350 mya
Survivors of millions of
years and having 11,000
different species existing
today
True vascular tissues,
strong roots, and
underground stems called
rhizomes
Life Cycle of Ferns
Ferns and relatives are
actually the final stage
of their lifecycle
Called a Diploid
Sporophyte
Spores are haploid
forming young
gametophytes
The gametophytes
produce sperm and
egg and then fertilize
the egg
After fertilization, a
mature sporophyte
grows from the
gametophyte