Chapter 36 Lecture Enrichment Ideas
Since less than two percent of students are now from rural farms, visual illustrations of most crop plants and vegetable structures will greatly increase understanding of most of the plant structures.
Detail why the root or the shoot of some plants can be used as the source of all other tissues in the plant, as in taking a cutting of a stem and rooting it or taking a root cutting and growing a complete plant.
Describe the various differences between monocots and dicots, with emphasis on roots, stems, and leaves, but also mentioning seeds and flowers.
Explain how a monocot can form a tree, such as a palm tree, if there is no true secondary tissue, by enlargement and stiffening of the cortex of the stem.
Discuss the difference in growth between herbaceous and woody plants, with emphasis on the meristematic tissues and their locations.
It is intuitive, but wrong, for students to assume that small herbaceous plants evolved before woody plants, or that monocots evolved before dicots. The text clarifies the woody-before-herbaceous scenario; it is also likely that the parallel-veined monocots evolved from stems of dicots.
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