Ch 2 - Plants: Vocabulary

Question 1

What is an ovule?

Answer 1

An ovule is the future seed of a plant.

Question 2

What is a sepal?

Answer 2

The sepal is any of the leaf-like structures that surround the base of a flower’s petals.

Question 3

What is the receptacle?

Answer 3

The receptacle is the enlarged upper portion of a flower’s stem.

Question 4

What do you call the ripened ovary of a flower?

Answer 4

the fruit

Question 5

What do we call the tiny shoot in an embryo that will become the stem and leaves?

Answer 5

the plumule

Question 6

What do we call the small root in the embryo that will develop into the root system?

Answer 6

the radicle

Question 7

What do we call the structures in the embryo that are designed for food absorption and storage?

Answer 7

the cotyledon

Question 8

What do we call the portion of the seed that stores food for the embryo?

Answer 8

the endosperm

Question 9

What do you call a plant whose seeds have only one cotyledon?

Answer 9

a monocot

Question 10

What do you call a plant whose seeds have two cotyledons?

Answer 10

a dicot

Question 11

What do you call a young plant that no longer depends on the cotyledons?

Answer 11

a seedling

Question 12

What kind of plant develops from a seed, produces new seeds, and dies in a single growing season?

Answer 12

an annual

Question 13

What kind of plant lives through two growing seasons to complete its lifecycle?

Answer 13

a biennial

Question 14

What kind of plant lives from year to year and blooms each growing season?

Answer 14

a perennial

Question 15

What is a plant that reproduces by seeds formed in flowers?

Answer 15

an angiosperm

Question 16

What is a spike?

Answer 16

a long flower arrangement with clusters attached directly to the stem.

Question 17

What is an umbel?

Answer 17

an arrangement of flowers that have stems of nearly equal length emerging from a common point on the main stem.

Question 18

What is an underground food-storage structure made of layers of thick, fleshy leaves surrounding a very short stem?

Answer 18

a bulb

Question 19

What is a thick underground stem that grows vertically called?

Answer 19

a corm

Question 20

What is a thick underground stem that grows horizontally called?

Answer 20

a rhizome

Question 21

What is a node?

Answer 21

the place where a leaf attaches to a stem

Question 22

What is a blade?

Answer 22

the broad, flat portion of a leaf

Question 23

What is a sheath?

Answer 23

the part of a grass leaf that attaches the culm to the blade

Question 24

What do you call a creeping stem that grows along the ground?

Answer 24

a stolon

Question 25

What is the name for a flower structure that is similar to a spike except that the flowers grow on small stems that branch off the main stem?

Answer 25

a **raceme**

Question 26

What is the stalk that attaches a leaf blade to a node called?

Answer 26

a **petiole**

Question 27

Which word refers to a leaf that has no petioles but instead attaches directly to the stem by a sheath?

Answer 27

**sessile**

Question 28

What is the edge of a leaf called?

Answer 28

the **margin**

Question 29

What is the vein pattern of a leaf called?

Answer 29

the **venation**

Question 30

What is **photosynthesis?**

Answer 30

**Photosynthesis** is the process whereby a plant uses sunlight, carbon dioxide, and water to manufacture glucose and give off oxygen.

Question 31

What is **chlorophyll?**

Answer 31

**Chlorophyll** is the green pigment, found in chloroplasts, that plants need for photosynthesis.

Question 32

What is a **stoma**?

Answer 32

A **stoma** is an air pore on the underside of a leaf.

Question 33

What do we call the simple sugar that provides the energy for the cells of living things?

Answer 33

**glucose**

Question 34

What do we call the polysaccharide that forms the cell walls of plants?

Answer 34

**cellulose**

Question 35

What does **woody** mean in reference to a plant?

Answer 35

developing a large amount of wood in the stem

Question 36

What does **herbaceous** mean?

Answer 36

nonwoody

Question 37

What is a **vine**?

Answer 37

any plant with a long, thin stem that grows along the ground or has tendrils that twine around a wall or other support