Plants in My Environment – Inventory Lab Exercise,individual, 10 points Please read about Plant Diversification in What is Life? A Guide to Biology before beginning this lab. The purpose of this lab exercise is to demonstrate that plants are in our environment and there is diversity among these plants. There are several different groups of plants and four different groups are studied in Chapter 12, nonvascular plant (mostly mosses in East Texas), vascular seedless plants (mostly ferns), gymnosperms and angiosperms or flowering plants. For this lab exercise, go out into your neighborhood, community and/or campus and make an inventory of different plants you encounter. Have fun taking pictures of both big and small plants, you may be surprised the variety you have in your own neighborhood or backyard! If you cannot get outside, brainstorm with family or friends, once again, you may be surprised how many different plants you can recall. 1. Your list should include at least 30 different plants. 2. Take pictures of all the plants. If you cannot go outside to take pictures, work with family and friends to list plants that are in your community and then include that plant with a picture from the web which is clearly indicated. For example, if I cannot get outside here in Huntsville, but I know there are pecan trees in my neighborhood, I can include pecan trees as one of my plants and include a picture from the web, with the source of the picture clearly indicated. 3. Provide the name of the plant, if known, or a brief description (For example: size of the plant, is it a tree?, shape of leaf, describe a flower if present, describe a fruit if present, Etc). Also include the location of the plant. Please do not pick leaves or damage the plants. This lab exercise requires pictures not live plant material. 4. Provide the name of the group for which it belongs: Nonvascular Plant, Vascular Seedless plant, Gymnosperm, Angiosperm (Flowering plant). Please see at the end of the lab exercise for additional information to help you place the plant in the proper group. 5. Make a Powerpoint or Microsoft Word document with pictures, plant name, group name, description and location. An example: with picture, oak tree, angiosperm or flowering plant, backyard in Huntsville, Texas Another example, for one I do not know the name of the plant: with picture, tree, heart-shaped leaf, red flowers, angiosperm or flowering plant, Sam Houston Memorial Museum, Huntsville, Texas. As with the animal lab exercise, you may want to combine some of your plants to help reduce file size. Below is a link to reduce the file size of each image which should help reduce the overall file size of the assignment: https://support.office.com/en-us/article/reduce-the-file-sizeof-a-picture-in-microsoft-office-8db7211c-d958-457c-babd-194109eb9535 Here is another link which advises users on how to reduce file sizes for both Word documents and PowerPoints: https://support.office.com/en-us/article/reduce-your-file-size-in-office-formac-631d1d48-a56b-4fd4-ad66-091dd201db10 FYI – For most places in the world – especially here in Texas, the vast majority of our plants are flowering plants. Although we may not notice the oak tree or pecan tree flower – they are flowering plants – Angiosperms. Here in Texas, if you see a tree or shrub, ask yourself, is this a pine tree? Does it have needle leaves or very small leaves? If not – it is most likely an Angiosperm. When trees are wind pollinated, they do not produce showy/pretty flowers since they are not trying to attract a pollinator such as a bee. I tell my botany class that the wind does not care what you look like, so these trees do not waste energy making pretty flowers for their pollinator, the wind. Instead, they make lots of pollen, since wind is not a reliable pollinator. We have ferns and some non vascular plants here in Texas, but the non vascular plants are usually very low to the ground – a person needs to bend down to see them. Ferns often have very showy leaves and can be seen in nature and also used in landscaping. Both of these two groups of plants will never have a flower. If you see a plant that you think is a fern, maybe it is called a fern at the plant store, and you see flowers or small fruit, it is not really a fern but an Angiosperm. Sometimes common names are misleading. Common gymnosperms are pine, cedar or juniper, bald cypress, and Sago palm (often used in landscaping). These plants will never have a flower. If they did, they would be placed in the Angiosperms. If you are living in Colorado or Wyoming, you may have many more gymnosperms since they can form extensive forests. Here is East Texas, we have the Piney Woods but no other forests of Gymnosperms. 6. How to submit this lab exercise: Submit this lab exercise as a Powerpoint or Microsoft Word document. This lab exercise is worth 10 points. Check the syllabus for the closing date. Clearly indicate if the picture has come from the web. This lab exercise will be evaluated by SafeAssign for plagiarism. Plagiarism will result in a grade of 0.
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