AY Honors/Shrubs/Answer Key

From Pathfinder Wiki

Template:Honor header

1. Note three characteristics of shrubs that distinguish them from trees and herbs. Why is a grape vine sometimes regarded as a shrub?

These are the differences between trees and shrubs:

  1. Shrubs do not grow as tall as trees, generally not reaching higher than 4.5 meters15 feet.
  2. A shrub's trunk has a circumference of less than 24 cm9.5 inches at 1.4 meters4.5 feet above the ground.
  3. Shrubs have multiple trunks, while trees generally have a single trunk.

On the other end of the spectrum, herbs are seed-bearing plants without woody stems, which die down to the ground after flowering. Shrubs are also seed-bearing, but they have woody stems which remain over the winter.

To do:
Why is the grapevine considered a shrub?

2. Name three important wild or cultivated food shrubs of your locality. Name a shrub that produces edible nuts.

Some important food shrubs include:

  • Grape
  • Highbush blueberry
  • Lowbush blueberry
  • Blackberry
  • Raspberry
  • Mulberry
  • Cranberry
  • Fig
  • Pomegranate
  • Kumquat
  • Guava
  • Red Currant
  • Black Currant
  • Gooseberry
  • Juneberries
  • Serviceberry
  • Elderberry

Even if people do not eat the food these shurbs provide, they are an important source of food for wildlife.

The hazel is a genus of about ten species of deciduous trees and large shrubs native to the temperate northern hemisphere. Species include the Common Hazel and the Filbert, both of which produce edible nuts with which most of us are familiar.

3. Name two cultivated shrubs and two wild shrubs of your locality that produce showy flowers.

4. Do most shrubs blossom in the spring, summer, or autumn? Name one shrub whose flowers open before the leaves appear.

To do:
when do most shrubs bloom?

Forsythia

Forsythia

Forsythia (Forsythia)

Description: Forsythias are popular early spring flowering shrubs in gardens and parks. Two are commonly cultivated for ornament, Forsythia × intermedia and Forsythia suspensa. They are both spring flowering shrubs, with yellow flowers. They are grown and prized for being tough, reliable garden plants. Forsythia × intermedia is the more commonly grown, is smaller, has an upright habit, and produces strongly coloured flowers. Forsythia suspensa is a large to very large shrub, can be grown as a weeping shrub on banks, and has paler flowers. Many named garden cultivars can also be found.

Fothergilla

Fothergilla

Fothergilla (Fothergilla)

Description: Fothergilla (fothergilla or witchalder) is a genus of two or three species of flowering plants in the family Hamamelidaceae, native to the southeastern United States.


Cercis

Cercis

Redbud (Cercis)

Description: Redbuds are native to warm-temperate regions. They are small deciduous trees or large shrubs, characterized by simple, rounded to heart-shaped leaves and pinkish-red flowers borne in the early spring on bare leafless shoots.

Magnolia liliiflora

Magnolia liliiflora

Lily Magnolia (Magnolia liliiflora)

Description: The Lily Magnolia is a deciduous shrub, exceptionally a small tree, to 4m tall (smaller than most other magnolias), and blooms profusely in early spring with large pink to purple showy flowers, before the leaf buds open.

5. What parasitic shrub frequently used for indoor decoration grows on the high branches of different kinds of trees?

Mistletoe on a Silver birch tree Santalales

Mistletoe on a Silver birch tree Santalales

Mistletoe (Santalales)

Description: Mistletoe is a plant parasitic on the branches of a tree or shrub. The species grow on a wide range of trees, and can eventually prove fatal to them where infestation is heavy, though damage more commonly only results in growth reduction. All mistletoes are hemiparasites, bearing evergreen leaves that carry out some photosynthesis on their own, relying on the host mainly for water and the mineral nutrients it carries. Mistletoe figured prominently in Norse mythology (which some believe is the origin of the modern Western custom of kissing under bunches of it hung as holiday decorations). Nowadays, mistletoe is commonly used as a Christmas decoration. According to a custom of Christmas cheer, any two people who meet under a hanging of mistletoe are obliged to kiss.

6. Give an example of a shrub whose leaves in autumn turn from green to brilliant shades of yellow, orange, or red.

Sumac? Dunno about yellow, but the commons has photos of orange staghorn sumac, and I know some sumacs turn bright red.

7. Observe some shrub which is in bloom and list as many kinds of insects as you can (at least three) which come to its blossoms for pollen or nectar.

8. From what shrubs do birds prefer to eat the fruit or seeds? Name a shrub whose flowers attracts birds.

Birds love to eat berries from almost any kind of shrub that produces them. Serviceberries, juneberries, currants, elderberry, are all very popular with birds, as are blueberries, gooseberries, blackberries, and raspberries.

Hummingbirds are attracted to the flowers of the honeysuckle, as they produce a sweet nectar (some people eat honeysuckle nectar too).

9. In what shrubs do birds prefer to build their nests?

10. Collect, preserve, and correctly identify the flowers, leaves, seeds, seed pods, or twigs with buds of ten wild shrubs.

References