Taxonomy CA Plants Chapter 4 Ferns

Question 1

1. What is the formal, scientific name for the vascular plants?

Answer 1

Tracheophyta.

Question 2

2. Name the major apomorphies of the vascular plants.

Answer 2

Sporophyte independent, long-lived; sporphyte branched, with multiple sporangia; lignin, in lignified, secondary cell walls; sclerenchyma; vascular tissue, with xylem and phloem; endodermis; roots.

Question 3

27. What are the major apomorphies of the lycophytes?

Answer 3

a) Roots of lycophytes are dichopodial, meaning that the root apical meristem may branch into two roots); no lateral roots develop, as they do in euphyllophytes (see later discussion). b) Lycophyte roots usually have an endarch protoxylem. c) Stems of lycophytes have an exarch protoxylem (just the reverse of the roots). d) Lycophytes, at least ancestrally, have sporangia that are dosiventral (i.e., flattened and having a dorsal, upper, and ventral, lower, surface) and dehisce transversely relative to the axis of the stem or subtending leaf. e) Lycophytes have sporophytic leaves, which constituted a major adaptive innovation by greatly increasing the area available for light capture in photosynthesis.

Question 4

32. Name three diagnostic features of the Lycopodiaceae.

Answer 4

The Lycopodiaceae are distinctive in being homosporous, dichotomously branched, erect, prostrate, or pendulous, perennial, lycophyllous herbs, the leaves eligulate, the sporangia reniform and transversely dehiscing, born on sporophylls that are photosynthetic and resemble vegetative leaves or that are nonphotosynthetic and scale-like in terminal strobili, the gametophytes mycorrhizal, photosynthetic or saprophytic.

Question 5

36. What group and two included families of lycophytes have ligulate leaves and heterospory?

Answer 5

Isoetopsida [Isoetales] - Isoetaceae and Selaginellaceae.

Question 6

37. Describe the basic morphology of members of the Isoetaceae.

Answer 6

The Isoetaceae are distinctive in being cormose to rhizomatous plants with a basal rosette of microphyllous, ligulate leaves, the leaves basally sheathing, apically linear to acicular, heterosporous, bearing adaxial megasporangia or microsporangia within sheathing leaf base.

Question 7

38. Name and define the two types of leaf morphology in Selaginella species.

Answer 7

Either homomorphic or dimorphic and four-rowed (with two upper rows of leaves smaller than the two lower rows).

Question 8

39. Name the apomorphies of the euphyllophytes, and list the two major, vascular plant groups included.

Answer 8

Apomorphies:a) Roots are monopodial. b) Roots have an exarch protoxylem. c) The ancestral sporangia were terminal in position with longitudinal deshiscence. d) Extant euphyllophytes have a 30-kilobase inversion located in the large single-copy region of chloroplast DNA. e) Leaves of euphyllophytes, termed euphylls, are distinctive. Two major groups: Monilophytes and Lignophytes/Spermatophytes.

Question 9

43. What is a shoot?

Answer 9

A stem plus associated leaves.

Question 10

44. What is the name of the region of actively dividing cells in a shoot, and how does this differ among vascular plants?

Answer 10

a) Shoot apical meristem; b) The apical meristem may contain one, dominant apical cell, found in most of the Selaginellaceae and the monilophytes, or a complex of several, actively dividing cells, found in the Lycopodiaceae, Isoetaceae, and the euphyllophytes.

Question 11

45. Define node; internode.

Answer 11

The region between two adjacent nodes.

Question 12

46. What is the general morphology and function of leaves?

Answer 12

Leaves are usually dorsiventral organs (with some exceptions), both an upper and lower epidermis can be defined. As with all land plants, a cuticle covers the outer cell wall of the epidermal cells. One or more vascular bundles, or veins, contain xylem and phloem tissue and conduct water and sugars to and from the chloroplast-containing mesophyll cells. The mesophyll of some leaves is specialized into upper, columnar palisade mesophyll cells and lower, irregularly shaped spongy mesophyll cells, the latter with large intercellular spaces. Stomata, which function in gas exchange are found typically only in the lower epidermis of leaves. Leaves are the primary photosynthetic organ of plants.

Question 13

47. What is a vein?

Answer 13

A vascular bundle that contains xylem and phloem tissue and conducts water and sugars to and from the chloroplast- containing mesophyll cells.

Question 14

48. What are the internal, chlorophyllous cells of a leaf called? Into which two layers may these cells be organized?

Answer 14

a) Mesophyll. b) Upper, columnar palisade mesophyll cells and lower, irregularly shaped spongy mesophyll cells, the latter with large intercellular spaces.

Question 15

49. What is the definition of a bud and where are they typically located?

Answer 15

Bud = an immature shoot system. They are typically located in the axils of leaves.

Question 16

54. Name the major apomorphies of the equisetophytes.

Answer 16

1) Ridged stems; 2) reduced, whorled leaves that are usually marginally fused; 3) sporangiophores, each of which consists of a peltate axis bearing pendant longitudinally dehiscent sporangia; and 4) photosynthetic spores with elaters.

Question 17

55. What is the only extant genus and family of this group?

Answer 17

Equisetum, Equisetaceae.

Question 18

56. What do equisetophytes have as a component of the cell wall?

Answer 18

Silica.

Question 19

57. What is the difference between a scouring rush and a horsetail? Into what two subgenera are these classified?

Answer 19

Scouring rushes (subgenus Hippochaete) lack (or have very few) whorls of lateral branches and have sunken stomates. Horsetails (subgenus Equisetum) have numerous, whorled, lateral branches and stomates flush with the epidermis.

Question 20

58. Describe the morphology of the strobilus (cone), sporangiophore, and sporangia of Equisetum.

Answer 20

Sporangia are homosporous, born in terminal strobili (subtended by a whorl of sheathing leaves), consisting of an axis bearing numerous, peltate sporangiophores, each (at maturity) bearing 5–10 sporangia beneath the distal, hexagonal outer portion; dehiscence is longitudinal (parallel to the axis of the elongate sporangium).

Question 21

59. What is unique about the spores of Equisetum? What is the function of this novelty?

Answer 21

Spores, which lack an attachment scar, are spherical, green (with chloroplasts), each bearing four, spatulate, hygroscopic elaters (derived from the spore wall), which coil and uncoil with changes in humidity, functioning in spore dispersal.

Question 22

69. Name three stem types/habits that occur in the leptosporangiate ferns.

Answer 22

Rhizome, arborescent, and vine stem.

Question 23

70. What is circinate vernation? What terms are used for immature fern leaves that exhibit this?

Answer 23

a) Development in which immature parts are coiled. b) Crozier or “fiddlehead.”

Question 24

71. Define frond, stipe, pinna, pinnule.

Answer 24

Frond - term for a fern leaf. Stipe - term for a fern petiole. Pinna - term for first discrete leaflets or leaf divisions of a fern leaf. Pinnule - term for the ultimate leaftlet or leaf division of a fern leaf.

Question 25

72. What aspects of venation and scale morphology are useful in leptosporangiate fern classification?

Answer 25

Venation - whether pinnate, palmate, open/free (simple, forked, or bifurcate), or reticulate/anastamosing. Scale morphology - whether clathrate or non-clathrate.

Question 26

73. What is the major apomorphy of the Polypodiopsida? Describe its development and morphology.

Answer 26

The leptosporangium, a sporangium that develops from a single epidermal cell, has a single cell layer of the wall at maturity, and produces a relatively small number of spores.

Question 27

74. Define annulus, sorus, indusium, false indusium, acrostichoid.

Answer 27

Annulus - a single row of cells of the leptosporangium in which the cell walls are differentially thickened on the inner cell face and on the faces between adjacent annular cells. Sorus - a cluster of leptosporangia. Indusium - a flap-like structure that may cover the sorus. False indusium - a flap-like structure that covers a sorus or group of leptosproangia that arises from the margin of a leaf or leaflet. Acrostichoid - a morphology in which numerous leptosporangia cover an extensive area of the blade, and are not arranged into discrete sori.

Question 28

75. Name aspects of sorus morphology, indusium morphology, sporangium development, sporangium morphology, and spore type used in fern classification.

Answer 28

Sorus morphology - shape (in outline), variation in the shape and size of the receptacle, and presence and morphology of paraphyses. Indusium morphology - present (indusiate) or absent (exindusiate), shape (e.g., reniform, orbicular, linear), and attachment point (e.g., peltate or lateral). Sporangium development - sequence of development, whether gradate (acropetalous, basipetalous), simultaneous, mixed, or intermingled. Sporangium morphology - length and number of stalk cells, body size and shape, and morphology and position of the annulus (e.g., whether lateral, transverse, apical, oblique), stomium, and dehiscence line. Spore type - whether trilete, monolete, or alete.

Question 29

85. Name a diagnostic feature of the sorus and indusium of the Dryopteridaceae, Polypodiaceae, and Pteridaceae. Dryopteridaceae - Sori are usually round, indusiate or exindusiate, acrostichoid in some taxa. Indusia, when present, are round-reniform or peltate.

Answer 29

Polypodiaceae - Sori are abaxial (rarely marginal), round, oblong, or elliptic, rarely elongate or acrostichoid, the receptacle often with paraphyses, exindusiate. Pteridaceae - Sori are exindusiate, either marginal with a false indusium formed by a reflexed marginal flap or intramarginal in lines along veins, the receptacle generally not raised.

Question 30

In latin, which ending is used for a.) feminine? b.) masculine? c.) neuter? d.) Genitive possessive case for male Commemoratives? e.) female?

Answer 30

a. ) -us
b. ) -a
c. ) -um
d. ) -ii or i (after r or y or non-a vowel), or -e (after a)
e. ) usually add -e or -ae

Question 31

What are the 6 diphthongs and how would each be pronounced?

Answer 31

1. ) -ae, sounds like eeee
2. ) -ei, sounds like iiiii
3. ) -au, sounds like awww
4. ) -oe, sounds like eeee
5. ) -eu, sounds like uuuu
6. ) -ui, sounds like wwiiii

Question 32

In latin, the number of syllables equals the number of _____________.

Answer 32

vowels and diphthongs

Question 33

Classical trees are ____________, regardless of their endings.

Answer 33

feminine

Question 34

Name the Classical trees?

Answer 34

Quercus, Pinus, Prunus

**specific epithet does not have to match genus femininity, ex. Quercus rubra or Pinus rubra, or Prunus rubra.