Plants

• Ecosystem services provided by plants include oxygen production, fiber for humans, clothing, and structures, decrease in soil erosion, and fuel sources
• Monoculture involves planting only one type of crop, with pros like similar care for all plants and increased crop yield, but cons such as depleting soil nutrients, vulnerability to crop-specific pests, increased use of pesticides, and being bad for consumers
• There are 4 types of plant tissue: meristematic, dermal, ground, and vascular
• Transport in plants occurs through roots, stems, and leaves
• Monocot and dicot plants differ in their reproductive structures
• There are 5 plant hormones that play crucial roles in plant growth and development
• Nastic response is different from tropisms, which include phototropism, geotropism, and thigmotropism
• Modified stems include:

  • Rhizome: horizontal underground stem with nodes at the end (e.g., ginger)
  • Tuber: enlarged, underground storage stem with extending buds
  • Corm: underground swollen vertical stem resembling a bulb, made of stem tissue with flaky leaves at the top (e.g., taro)
  • Bulb
  • Stolon: horizontal plant stem/runner surrounded by flaky storage leaves, with roots along the stem that can form new plants (e.g., onion, garlic, strawberries)
• Leaves have structures like cuticle (waxy, waterproof substance covering the leaf), spongy mesophyll (airy layer of cells under palisade mesophyll), leaf venation, epidermis (1 cell thick layer on top and bottom of leaf), palisade mesophyll, vascular bundle, stomata (tiny pores in lower epidermis regulating gas exchange), and guard cells controlling the opening and closing of stomata
• Monocots have 1 cotyledon, parallel venation, scattered vascular bundles, fibrous roots, flowers in multiples of 3, and xylem & phloem in a ring in the center. Dicots have 2 cotyledons, palmate or pinnate venation, vascular bundles in a ring, taproot, flowers in multiples of 4-5, and xylem & phloem in a star shape
• Parts of a flower include petals, sepal, receptacle, pistil (stigma, style, ovary with ovules), and stamen (anther, filament with pollen containing male gametes). Flowers can be complete or incomplete, perfect or imperfect, and plants can be monoecious or dioecious
• Pollination mechanisms involve self-pollination (on the same plant), cross-pollination (from another plant), and animal pollination where pollinators carry pollen between flowers. Seed dispersal methods include animal aid, with seeds dispersed away from the parent plant for increased survival rates