AY Honors/Flowers - Advanced/Answer Key

3. Give the distinguishing characteristics of the flowers of each of the 12 common plant families.

Adventist Youth Honors Answer Book/Flower families

5. Tell the difference between perfect and imperfect flowers. What is meant by pistillate and staminate flowers? Give an example of monoecious and dioecious plants. Tell the difference between monocotyledons and dicotyledons.

Perfect and Imperfect

The terms perfect and imperfect as pertaining to flowers relates to their sexuality. Flowers are the sexual organs of a plant, and they may contain male (stamens), female (pistils), or both parts. A plant is said to be perfect if it possesses both male and female equivalent parts. If a flower has only male, or only female structures, it is said to be imperfect.

Pistillate and Staminate

A flower is pistillate if it possesses only pistils, which are a plant's female reproductive structures. If it possesses only stamens (the male reproductive structures), it is called staminate.

Monoecious and Dioecious

The Alder is monoecious. Shown here: maturing male flower catkins on right, last year's female catkins on left

Holly (Ilex aquifolium) is dioecious: (above) shoot with flowers from male plant; (top right) male flower enlarged, showing stamens with pollen and reduced, sterile stigma; (below) shoot with flowers from female plant; (lower right) female flower enlarged, showing stigma
and reduced, sterile stamens with no pollen

A monoecious plant is one that possesses both male and female unisexual flowers on the same plant; from Greek for "one household". Individuals bearing flowers of both sexes at the same time are called simultaneously monoecious. Individuals that bear only flowers of a single sex at one time are called consecutively monoecious. An example of a monoecious plant is the Alder (a shrub).

A dioecious plant is one in which the male and female unisexual flowers occur on different individuals; from Greek for "two households". An example of a dioecious plant is the Holly.

Monocotyledons and Dicotyledons

Grass sprouting on left (a monocot), showing a single cotyledon. Compared to a dicot (right)

Dicotyledons, or "dicots", is a name for a group of flowering plants whose seed typically contains two embryonic leaves or cotyledons. Monocotyledons, or "monocots" have a single embryonic leaf.

7. Name and describe eight poisonous plants, noting the particular part of the plant that is poisonous.

Poison Hemlock

Poison Ivy

Poison Oak

Poison Sumac

Nightshade

Iris

Dogbane

Yew

8. Do one of the following:

b. Name ten wild plants that are edible in root, stem, or leaf.

Adventist Youth Honors Answer Book/Camping/Ten edible wild plants