Lab 1 Ranunculaceae

RANUNCULACEAE - Buttercup Family

---

Flowers of Clematis; the right one is more mature. Only the calyx is present, a common feature of the Ranunculaceae family; ie. the perianth is composed of entirely sepals.

A cross section through the flower with parts labeled.

A pistil under the microscope. The tip is the stigma, the furry bits are the style and the oval structure at the end is the ovary.

When the fruit ripens, it will look like this. Each individual pistil matures into an achene.

The zygomorphic flowers of Aconitum and again, the petal-like structures are actually the sepals.

The pair of elongated structures hidden beneath the 'hood' are the modified petals. The petals are comprised of 3 parts: claws, spur and blade

Check out the spirally arranged stamens. How many pistils are present? I forgot to count during the lab, but my guess is 3?

The fruit of Aconitum is a follicle. It is characterized by its single carpel and dehiscing to release its seeds.

Lab 1 - Parts of a flower

Parts of a flower

---

This is a flower of the Fuchsia plant. It has its sepals and petals spread out radially. What do we call this kind of arrangement?
 

A cross section through the flower. Can you name the different floral parts? and what is the positioning of the ovary relative to the stamens, petals, and sepals?

Here's a labeled picture and this flower has an inferior ovary.

*there should be a total of 8 stamens, but only 5 are shown here because of the sectioning. *edit: the hypanthium has been extended to the base of the ovary.

The next flower is a snapdragon.

It can only be cut into 2 identical halves, so its symmetry is zygomorphic.

If you look at the base of the right half, you can see its 2 carpels.

Here's a pea pod (legume).

The open space between each pea is its locule; locule number = 1. 

Note that the attachment of the peas are at the margins, therefore this is called marginal placentation.

A cross section through a tomato. The seeds are attached to the placenta (the white structures at the center) and this time it is at the centre of the ovary. What is its placentation? The areas occupied by the seeds, placenta and juice are the locules.

The Begonia flower is a monecious plant, meaning it has stamen only (male) flowers AND pistil only (female) flowers. These are imperfect flowers; perfect flowers have both male and female structures. The above is a male (staminate flower), how do we know?

If we take a look at the backside...there is an absence of ovary.

 Here's a female (pistillate flower) and the presence of an ovary; quite a noticeable difference.

...and the top view of the pistillate flower

A water lily in full bloom. Try naming all the structures in this picture.

The structures from the outside in: sepals, tepals?, petals, stamenoids, stamens, and pistils

Magnoliids

The Magnolia flower that perfumed the lab room.

Check out the tepal and stamen scars and their spiral arrangement.

Kam Ho carefully freed one of the Magnolia seed and left it dangling.

Some black pepper (Piper nigrum) from the Piperaceae family.

Starting out

Hello, I am Midy Liou. This blog has been created with the intention of posting and describing pictures of plants species we encountered in Biology 324. I hope to update this blog after each lab day, time permitting, and look forward to any feedback.

The idea of plant blogging started in the Biology 343 (Plants and People) course with Senior Instructor Shona Ellis' course blog. Douglas Newbigging and I wanted a piece of the action and we thought it would be awesome to create a blog of our own. We had enjoyed posting labeled pictures and commenting on the various organisms we came across. And we have decided to continue this blog for Seed plant taxonomy. Although Doug is not in the class as he has already taken the course, he will be around from time to time to share his plant biology expertise.

If you feel you have a picture or diagram and want it posted - please feel free to contact Midy (midy_0831[at]hotmail.com) and I will be happy to share your material. Also, feel free to leave comments on this blog.