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Basically Botany. ‘Starter’ Plants. Stinkwood Pepperwood Rangiora Crown fern…. Parts of a Plant. Pollination. Wind vs Insect Pollinated Flowers. Fuchsia Flowers.
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‘Starter’ Plants • Stinkwood • Pepperwood • Rangiora • Crown fern…
Fuchsia Flowers The flowers are very decorative; they have a pendulous "teardrop" shape and are displayed in profusion throughout the summer and autumn, and all year in tropical species. They have four long, slender sepals and four shorter, broader petals; in many species the sepals are bright red and the petals purple (colours that attract the hummingbirds that pollinate them), but the colours can vary from white to dark red, purple-blue, and orange. A few have yellowish tones, and recent hybrids have added the colour white in various combinations. The ovary is inferior and the fruit is a small (5–25 mm) dark reddish green, deep red, or deep purple, edible berry, containing numerous very small seeds. Many people describe the fruit as having a subtle grape flavour spiced with black pepper. Fuchsia excorticata Fuchsia hybrida
Seed Dispersal • Why? • Plants spread their seeds to minimise competition (eg for water) amongst seedlings • And to reduce the chance of the whole species being wiped out by a disaster. • How? • Water: floating seeds transported by streams, ocean currents. Eg coconut, kowhai • Explosion: seed pods rapidly open and fling seeds out. Eg broom, gorse • Wind: small light seeds, with structures that catch the wind are transported downwind. Eg dandelion, thistle • Eaten by animal: fleshy tasty fruit eaten and animal egests seed out in a new location. Eg apple, apricot • Caught on animal: seeds have hooks, catch on fur, fall off in new place. Eg bidibid
Kowhai Thistledown (aka fairy) Dandelion bidibid Poor mans orchid Hook grass
Leaf Cross Section Key: 1) cuticle 2) upper epidermis 3) palisade mesophyll 4) spongy mesophyll 5) lower epidermis 6) stoma 7) guard cells 8) xylem 9) phloem 10) vascular bundle
Xylem & Phloem Both are transport tissues Xylem • Transports water, micronutrients from roots up to rest of plant • Forms woody layer in woody plants • Mostly dead cells Phloem • Transports sugars, metabolic products from leaves down to rest of plant • Living cells
Multiple cross sections of a flowering plant stem showing primary and secondary xylem and phloem
*Ringbarkingaka girdling • Because phloem tubes sit on the outside of the xylem in most plants, a tree or other plant can be effectively killed by stripping away the bark in a ring on the trunk or stem. With the phloem destroyed, nutrients cannot reach the roots, and the tree/plant will die. Trees located in areas with animals such as beavers are vulnerable since beavers chew off the bark at a fairly precise height. This process is known as girdling, and can be used for agricultural purposes. For example, enormous fruits and vegetables seen at fairs and carnivals are produced via girdling. A farmer would place a girdle at the base of a large branch, and remove all but one fruit/vegetable from that branch. Thus, all the sugars manufactured by leaves on that branch have no sinks to go to but the one fruit/vegetable, which thus expands to many times normal size.
