Introduction
Plants are autotrophs which make their own, organic nutrients, to sustain themselves, through a complex process known as photosynthesis. The plant kingdom is diverse and is made of plants of different biological diversity (Raven et al. 2005). Cryptograms or Seedless plants are vascular plants that do not produce seeds for dispersal but reproduce by windblown spores. In seedless plants the gametophyte and sporophyte are both independent phases in the plant’s life cycle. Like all vascular plants, cryptograms have true roots, stems and leaves. The sperm are flagellated and require water for reproduction. These plants are therefore limited to moist areas. It is hypothesized that many of the seedless vascular plants were once tree-sized at a point in time ("Lycopodium" September 28, 2012).
Table 1: Various plants within the plantae kingdom and their key characteristic/s.
Cryptograms and Vascular Tissue
The word vascular is synonymous with the word transport. Vascular tissue is the complex network of transport present within plants that help transport water and organic nutrients throughout the plants body. With vascular plants approximately 93% of their tissue is vascular. There are two main types of vascular tissue, the phloem and the xylem (Gregory).
Xylem
The xylem is composed of two types of elongated water-conducting cells. Tracheids along with fibres and parenchyma cells make up the xylem. The xylem’s function in the plant is to transport water and salts through the plant ("Vascular Tissues in Plants" 2004).
Phloem
The phloem unlike the xylem consist of living tissue called sieve tube elements, which consist of the sieve tube and a companion cell. The sieve tube elements along with sclereids and parenchyma make...
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...n Trinidad and Tobago. I would strongly recommend a checklist be done as soon as possible by the National Herbarium of Trinidad and Tobago. The limitations in this research are numerous
Works Cited
Peter Raven, Ray Evert, and Susan Eichhorn. 2005. “Biology of Plants.” New York: Freeman and Company.
Palaeos.org, "Lycopodium." Last modified September 28, 2012. Accessed November 19, 2013. http://www.palaeos.org/Lycopodium.
Gregory, Michael. The Biology Web, "Seedless Plants." Accessed November 19, 2013. http://faculty.clintoncc.suny.edu/faculty/michael.gregory/files/bio 102/bio 102 lectures/seedless plants/seedless plants.htm.
"Vascular Tissues in Plants," National Biology Support Service (NBSS) (2004): 1-2,
Radboud University Nijmegen, "Lycophyta (Lycopodium, Selaginella)." Accessed November 20, 2013. http://www.vcbio.science.ru.nl/en/virtuallessons/lycophyta/.
Diffusion and osmosis are necessary for the efficient transport of substances in and out of living cells. Diffusion is the most common and effective transportation process between cells and their surroundings, the movement of a substance along a concentration gradient from high to low, allowing essential nutrients and compounds to be transported without expending energy. Osmosis is a special kind of diffusion, specific to water. In order to observe diffusion and osmosis in real and artificial cells, a series of experiments was put together to observe how the surface area to volume ratio effects the rates of diffusion by using agar in different shapes with different ratios, next the rate of diffusion due to tonicity was observed using different solutions with different tonicities. And lastly live plant cells were submerged in different solutions with varying water potentials to observe how was potential effects the rate of osmosis and diffusion. It was concluded that the larger surface area to volume ratio, the faster rate of diffusion, the hypertonic solutions caused water to leave a cell and the hypotonic solutions allowed water to enter a cell, and that water potential will move from high to low in an attempt to maintain equilibrium.
In wild type culture of C-ferns, it is expected that there will be a high concentration of antheridiogen since the hermaphrodites are producing antheridiogen. The greater the population density of C-ferns, the higher the concentration of antheridiogen; hence a high percentage of male gametophytes in the wild type cultures.
Holt, Ben F. and Gar W. Rothwell. 1997. Is Ginkgo biloba really an oviparous plant? American Journal of Botany 84(6): 870-873.
Rhee, S. Y., W. Beavis, et al. (2003). "The Arabidopsis Information Resource (TAIR): a model organism database providing a centralized, curated gateway to Arabidopsis biology, research materials and community." Nucl. Acids Res. 31(1): 224-228.
Two transport systems called xylem and phloem move substances around a plant in a particular tissue called vascular tissue. Xylem, transports water and soluble minerals upward, whereas, phloem transports sugars upward and downward. Phloem and xylem tissues are found together in vascular bundles. (ASBiology101, 2013).
This gave rise to nonvascular plants like, mosses, liverworts, and hornworts. The second period of plant evolution began 425 million years ago was the diversification of plants with vascular tissue allowing plants to grow much taller and rise above the ground. The next period of plant evolution is the origin of seeds, about 360 million years ago. Seeds are embryos packed along with food in a protective covering. Last is flowering plants about 140 million years ago, which is seeds within protective chambers called ovaries. Animal evolution begins when an animals egg and sperm fuse, producing a zygote. The zygote splits by mitosis and forms an blastula, which usually is a hollow ball of cells. One side of the blastula folds in forming a gastrula, which develops into an embryo with a two-layered wall and an opening on one end. After the gastrula stage animals develop into
Lauffer, H. B., Williams, P., & Lauffer, D. (2012). Wisconsin Fast Plants® Program. Retrieved February 26, 2014, from http://www.fastplants.org
Organisms of all ecosystems rely on the mechanisms that have evolved for the sustainability of survival (Source 7). This is particularly applicable for the Eukaryote Kingdom, Plantae, (plant), of which is sessile. Due to their dormant nature, plants must be proficient in subsisting with the changing biotic and abiotic factors. As plants have no nervous system, plants rely on hormones (Source 1). Plant hormones are chemical messengers that are transported between the cells of a plant (Source 1, Source 3), and are responsible for several operations such as the growth of stems, leaves, and seed germination (Source 1).
Janick. J. (2011). Center for New Crops & Plant Products - Department of Horticulture and
under the parent plant (Wieseler, 2009). This growth habit is a primary reason the plant was
moves along the cells of the root and up the xylem to the leaf. Water
The basic life cycle for all plants is sporophyte (adult) > spore > gametophyte > gamete > fertilization > sporophyte. For bryophytes, the gametophyte and the sporophyte phases are vastly different in structure; in moss the gametophyte looks like green fuzz, but its sporophyte is a hooded stalk. Seedless vascular plants are similar in that these phases are also very conspicuous, but to a lesser extent. Ferns, for example, have typical plant-like sporophytes (the leafy fronds everyone is familiar with), and its gametophyte stage is a tiny, heartshaped, leaf-like structure. The difference between bryophytes and seedless vascular plants however, is that seedless vascular plants have vascular tissue ("plumbing" for sugar and water transport), and bryophytes don't (water is absorbed directly through the surfaces of the
Leutwyler, Kristin. “Scientists Grow Plants without Sunlight or Water.” Scientific American. N.p., 15 June 2001. Web. 15 Dec. 2009. .
have up to 3 or 4 buds. Exactly the same as plants in soil, they use
In the lab exercise regarding plant structure and function, we examined slides containing the different kinds of roots (monocot, dicot). We labeled the parts and pointed out the different roles of each in the plant structure. Also, we examined monocot stems and dicot stems in order to familiarize ourselves with its external and internal structures. We sketched and labeled the parts of the stem and looked closely at the positions of each part. In the last part of the lab, we classified leaves into different kinds according to their leaf venation, bases of leaves, and apices of leaves. As an additional exercise, we sketched 20 animals and classified them according to phylum and class. We were also able to discover the scientific and common names of the animals. Overall, the exercises we did enabled us to familiarize ourselves with plant structure thus, gaining a better understanding for plant life and its importance.