Botany Basics | How to Identify Different Plant Species Around You

have you ever learned a language even if you haven't you're probably aware of words in other languages that are instantly recognizable in English how about the word burrito that's a Spanish word for a delicious food that comes in a tortilla Which is another Spanish word that you probably know even if you don't know Spanish so it is with botany some of the words like root will be familiar others like inflorescent or trichome may be unfamiliar but learning some of these unfamiliar terms will help you enjoy plants more think of how much richer your life is

because you can order a burrito or a croissant and have the expectation of those delicious food items so it is then you see for an example a miniature Leaf called a stipule and you recognize it instantly and that one character helps you identify an unknown plant these terms will help you be able to talk about the parts of plants and make identifications in the field we'll start from the ground and work our way up and then we'll discuss fruit types typically The Roots aren't used too much in identifying plants though I do know that many

grasses are indistinguishable without their roots there are two main types of root systems plants can either have a Tap Root which is like a carrot or a fibrous Roots where no one root is bigger than the others some plants can also have adventitious roots in biology the word adventitious means an unusual anatomical position or formed by accident in the case of adventitious Roots it means in an unusual position so that these are roots that develop along the stem or even from the leaves an example of adventitious Roots would be prop Roots found in corn or

stilt Roots found in mangroves we'll discuss another important identifying traits of roots as we meet them but for now let's know fibrous roots and tap Roots moving up the stem there is a bit more variety some stems are green which means that those stems are photosynthesizing and that can be an identifying trait mostly though when we discuss stems botanists are really discussing the overall plant habit which means growth form don't confuse habit with habitat The Habit is the overall morphology of the plant and the habitat is the type of ecosystem in which the plant grows

when thinking about stems botanists will first determine if a plant is Woody or herbaceous sometimes plants might be Woody at the base so it's important to check the base when identifying this character herbaceous growth forms are grasses and herbs which are also sometimes called forbs this word forb comes from the Greek forebay or fodder from forbane to feed an herb or a forb is generally any herbaceous plant that isn't a grass so even a weed like a dandelion would be considered a forb but so would useful fodder like Alfalfa we'll learn to identify grasses in

a later lecture but for now keep those terms in your mind for herbaceous plants Woody plants can include trees shrubs and sub shrubs which are smaller shrubs there are a few other words that define the overall growth and these plants can have Woody tissue or not again there are other habit descriptors but we'll meet them as we meet the families that they typify along with the plant's overall habit many identification books will ask whether the plant is an annual or a perennial annuals usually flower from Spring melt to First Frost which is more true in

the garden than in the field but this is still a useful guideline in the field many annuals will Bloom when there is adequate water such as many desert annuals in fact some plants will behave like annuals in cold climates but will be perennials in milder climates such as poppies perennials will have a shorter flowering time typically two to three weeks but they will come back the next year remember that no plant lives forever and even perennials will die in the field anything that is Woody even at the base is a perennial and herbaceous plants can

be either perennial or annual and you'll have to use flowering time as a clue moving up to the leaves this is where a lot of the identification will take place for many broad leaves trees the shape of the leaf and the texture of the bark are the main identification characteristics broad leaves means that the leaves are Broad and this is usually contrasted with needle-like such as in conifers leaves are also classified as evergreen or deciduous not all conifers are evergreen remember the larches and not all broad-leaved trees are deciduous in the tropics many broad leaf

trees are evergreen even in North America there are some broad-leaved evergreen trees especially in the southern states an example would be some species of magnolia tree and the Live Oaks we won't delve into all the leaf shapes at this time namely because Leaf shape is not a particularly strong defining characteristic for families Leaf shape is best for defining species and we'll look at some fam examples in later families what is very useful for defining families is the arrangement of leaves on the stem the location where leaves insert into the stem is called the node typical

leaves have a flat base and a leaf stem that connects the blade of the leaf to the main stem this Leaf stem is called the petiole how the petioles attach to the stem determines the leaf arrangement and there are three main Leaf Arrangements an opposite leaf arrangement occurs where one leaf inserts directly opposite a leaf on the other side of the stem this is in contrast to an alternate leaf arrangement where leaves you guessed it alternate up the stem one way to learn plants is to memorize families with particular characteristics such as all the plant

families that have opposite leaves however there are a couple hundred plant families that could have opposite leaves especially if you live in the tropics still these are important terms to know as they can be especially useful for determining the differences between two families that have similar looking flowers the third type of leaf arrangement is called world this word sounds a lot like world and that's probably the it's derivation the Whirl of a spindle World means that the leaves are arranged in a circle around the stem think a whirl of world leaves sometimes it's a bit

confusing to get the leaf arrangement right and that's because what constitutes a leaf can be a bit tricky in some plants a leaf can be simple or compound a simple leaf has only one blade and one petiole a compound leaf will have more than one blade and so these numerous blades are called leaflets so even though it has lobes the maple tree is still one blade while the Clover has three leaflets so it is a compound leaf although there may appear to be more than one petiole there is only one and in the junction between

the petiole and the main stem can be found the key to determining if a blade is a leaf or a leaflet when you look in the axle which is a fancy term for the space between where the petiole inserts and the main stem there will be a very small Leaf Bud there if the structure is a true Leaf if it's a leaflet there will not be one of these Leaf buds because the bud is located in the axle it is called the axillary bud an anatomy axillary means armpit so this is sort of like the

armpit of the plant where the stem functions as the body and the leaf petiole is like an arm when the leaflets are arranged like a feather they are called pinnate from the Latin pinatus meaning feathered common example here would be the leaves of an ash tree when the leaflets are arranged around the central axis like your fingers around your palm the leaf is called palmate an example of palmate leaves would be the horse chestnut these terms penate and palmate are also used to describe the leaf venation which refers to the arrangement of the veins within

the leaves the veins of the leaves contain the vascular tissue which is the xylem and phloem the xylem carries water and minerals up from the soil and the phloem carries the sugars produced in the leaves by photosynthesis to the rest of the plant leave the nation can also be linear like the veins in Blades of grass and this trait is usually limited to a particular group of plants called the monocots that will meet in a future lecture the last two Leaf traits important for identification are Leaf margins and leaf hairs the margin of the leaf

refers to the outer REM of a leaf and that can be a defining character if the leaf margin is smooth as it is in a magnolia then it's called entire if it's Jagged in some way like in an Elm it's given a different name but the most common of these Leaf margin terms is serate which does indeed look like a serrated knife at the edge of the blade when you look at these Leaf serrations you might wonder why the leaf would do that in a 2016 review article in current biology by Daniel Chitwood and the

Lima Sinha it suggests that there's a trend of more entire leaves being found in the tropics and in the Arctic the mid-latitudes it seems have more leaves with dissected or non-entire margins while there are several hypotheses for why this trend might exist there's no definitive answer yet it could be that leaf dissection is a good way to let light down to the lower levels in a tree's canopy or it could be that leaf dissection is an easier way to get your photosynthetic Machinery up and running during the growing season without producing an entire Leaf get

it entire leaf as for our last distinguishing trait for leaves usually just the presence of leaf hairs is enough botanically Leaf hairs are referred to as trichomes and unlike Leaf margin shapes the function of trichomes is well known the hairs on leaves work a lot like hair on animals the trichomes can regulate Leaf temperature and also serve as a glandular outlet for chemicals that will protect the leaf from herbivory usually from insects the trichomes can also help prevent water loss from by increasing the boundary layer of air around the leaf essentially this means that the

wind speed near the leaf will be slower and this will slow evaporation of water out of the leaf lastly trichomes can serve to protect belief against too much solar radiation moving up the plant on our terms to know for plant identification we come to flowers though we covered flowers in chapter 3 they are so important for identification will have a very brief review recall that flowers are the reproductive organs of the plant they will also be the basis for all fruits that the plant will form however wherever there is a flower there isn't a guarantee

of a fruit that flower has to be pollinated that is pollen which carries the sperm of the plant must reach the pistol of the plant in order for fertilization to occur these two words are not synonymous pollination means pollen has been transferred and fertilization means that the sperm has reached the egg and fertilized it to form the zygote which develops into the embryo inside the seed before we even investigate the structure of the flower we can observe how the flowers are arranged on the plant this Arrangement is called the inflorescence and the type of inflorescence

can be very important in determining plant families there are two main categories of inflorescences they can be determinate or indeterminate a determinate inflorescence is one where the flower production of that plant is genetically predetermined to stop at a certain size an indeterminate inflorescence is one where flower production continues through the growing season of the plant the main determinate inflorescence types are all A variation on a sign which is an inflorescence where the central flower develops first in the figure the half moon shapes are the flowers that are first to open indeterminate inflorescences are a bit

more varied the first flowers to open are at the base and as the plant continues to grow up or out more flowers develop the most common indeterminate inflorescence is a Racine like foxglove or lupine this word comes from the Latin word racimus which means bunch of grapes I'm not sure a Racine looks like a bunch of grapes but there are many flowers and they alternate up the stem the flowers will be on a small stalk called a pedestal and if there is no pedestal but the flowers on are on either side of the stem then

the inflorescent is called a spike if there is more than one flower coming off of the stalks then the inflorescence is a compound regime or a panicle and a good example here is a lilac if the flower stalks all join to a central location on the stem to form an upside down umbrella shape this inflorescence type is called an Umble from the Latin umbbella meaning sun shade or parasol and lucky for us this is the same root as umbrella so the humble and fluorescence should be easy to remember humble is an upside down umbrella a

good example of an humble is wild carrot if we continue our discussion of distinguishing terms we can explore the flower itself moving from the bottom to the top of the flower we begin with the green leaf-like structures that are just below the colorful petals these sepals usually form the outermost part of the flower bud the petals are typically colored in order to attract pollinators which are animals that will transfer pollen from one plant to another if the flowers are showy which means typically that they're noticeable and colored then they are usually animal pollinated sunflowers by

contrast are decidedly not showy and lack much color and these flowers tend to be wind pollinated an example of an animal pollinated flower is this pretty Scarlet Helia or ipomopsis aggregata its red color signifies that it is attracting a pollinator and the long tube shape of the flower tells us that it's pollinated by an animal with a long tongue such as a butterfly or a hummingbird an example of a wind pollinated flower is this paper birch Bachelor pepifera this flower is inconspicuous and small the flowers have no bright color or smell and that's because these

flowers don't need to attract insect pollinators there are numerous descriptive terms for the overall shape of the flowers we'll start with overall flower symmetry this is an important diagnostic character and there are three different symmetry types for flowers if the flowers can be dissected in multiple planes like a pizza it has radial symmetry an example is this evening primrose if like a human there's only one way the flower can be dissected to reveal two symmetric halves then it has bilateral symmetry an example is this digitalis flower lastly sunflowers have no symmetry like members of the

Cana genus and these are called asymmetric like Leaf shape there are many different names for the shape of the petals collectively the petals are referred to as the Corolla and some words used to describe the Corolla are tubular trumpet-shaped and funnel shaped each of these is a variation on the theme tubular the trumpet shape flares out at the end and the funnel shape flares out even more at the end rather than Define every floral type here I'll introduce important floral shapes as we meet them and most identification books will have a glossary While most of

these Botanical terms are Universal it never hurts to see just what the exact definition is for the identification book you're using moving to the inside of the petals we come to the male parts of the flower or the stamen they are comprised of the anther which sits on the filament usually it's the number of statement that we're concerned with in identification so we'll leave it at that for now the pistol is the female portion of the flower it contains the sticky stigma at the top where the pollen lands and a long style that goes down

to the ovary where the ovary sits in relation to the rest of the petals and sepals collectively called the perianth will be important a superior ovary sits on top of the petals and sepals and an inferior ovary sits below the petals and sepals some plants have more than one pistol determining the number of pistols is important to distinguishing the fruit type fruits that are formed from One pistol are called Simple fruits this is the most common fruit type and just a few examples are apples oranges Tomatoes cherries and aggregate fruit is one that is formed

by the development of a number of pistols from the same flower an example of this type of fruit is a Blackberry which is an aggregate of many different fruits the ovary within the pistol can be divided into different segments called carpals if there is just one carpal in the ovary then the flower is monocarpic if these carpals aren't fused then the pistol is the same as the carpal but if there is more than one carpal and it's fused into one pistol then the flower is sin carpus many times the number of styles or the number

of stigma lobes will be a clue as to how many carpels are contained in the ovary the way that the ovules the unfertilized eggs inside the carpals are attached to the carpal wall is also important for some families now we've used the words carpal and Pistol and sometimes these mean the same thing but other times they don't for example you can have one flower with three unfused carpels and three simple pistols but it's also possible for a flower to have three fused carpels and also three Styles and three stigma but since the carpals are fused

there is only one pistol where the ovules are attached inside the carpal is called placentation again placentation becomes more important when determining species or Genera rather than families so you needn't commit them to Memory just be aware of their existence as we discussed the ovary is where the ovule is contained the ovule is the name for the unfertilized egg when that egg is fertilized the embryo begins to form inside the developing seed there may be more than one ovule in a carpal and more than one carpal in an ovary most fruits are simple fruits that

is they are derived from One pistol keep in mind that the fruit is the swollen ovary and keying out fruit types is actually pretty fun there are many fruit Keys available online and you can collect fruits from the grocery but also from the backyard it's really fun and you get to eat your study specimen when you're done so simple fruits derived from One pistol can be dry at maturity or fleshy if a fruit is dry at maturity it will be dehiscent or indehissant that word dehiscence is derived from the Latin D hiss which means to

split so a dehiscent fruit is a dry fruit that splits open at maturity I like to think of it as dehiscent and the hiss sound might remind you of the seed splitting out of the fruit it may be useful here to think of the 2018 research findings of Dwight Whitaker at Pomona College who found that the seeds of the Wild Petunia ruia cilia tilaflora D hiss out of the fruit at 15 meters per second and that these seeds can spin up to 100 000 rotations per minute which is the fastest seed travel known according to

the journal Nature that's the fastest natural projectile known let's begin with the decent fruit types remember they hiss or break open at maturity to release the seeds one of the most common is the legume and if you're familiar with the garden term legume you'll know that this term includes beans and peas and peanuts which aren't actually nuts but we'll get into that the legume fruit is derived from one carpal and that maturity it will split along both the top and the bottom similarly a follicle is a lot like a legume but it will only split

along one side an example here is the state flower of Colorado the Columbine remember we said that the ovary could contain several carpals or chambers within the ovary apsole is derived from several carpals and there are several variations on this theme depending on how the capsule splits if the capsule splits in the middle of the locules then is called a locked usidal capsule and lilies and irises are good examples if capsule splits along the walls of the locules which are called SEPTA then it's called asepticidal capsule and these capsules will open at the top the

fruits of Yucca and Agave provide good examples of septicidal capsules apixis is a capsule that has circumcisiled dehiscence it's along a horizontal line that goes all the way around the fruit or circumscribes it hence the name circumcessile essentially this is like the lid of the fruit popping off to release the seeds purslane is a good example of a plant with a circumcisile capsule perhaps the most ornamental of this group is the poricidal capsule which will have round holes on the fruit through which the seeds are released the most famous example of the poricidal capsule is

the poppy fruit dry fruits can also be indecent which means that they will not open when they mature you may be wondering how the seeds will be dispersed remember that the fruit itself may be dispersed along with the seeds and that is the case here most of the indehiscent dry fruits are one-seeded fruits we'll start with everyone's favorite the whirly bird Samara from a maple tree a samara's defining character is that part of the fruit wall grows into a wing that creates the whirly bird kids love to play with apparently the wing AIDS in secondary

dispersal that is after the fruit Falls initially from the tree the wind can help it ride the wind the second time away from the parent plant I think it's good to talk about a schizocard next because the double Samara can also be defined as a schizocarp the prefix schizo means split and the schizo carp has two equal halves each called americarp so in a double Samara common to sugar maple or asyl Acer sakarum each Samara is americarp so this fruit is a schizo card if you've ever eaten a sunflower seed in the Shell then you've

cracked open and a keen this is a one-seeded indeciscent fruit where the one seed think of your sunflower seed is attached to the fruit wall at a single point though it's not apparent in the sunflower seeds in the store many ekenes will have a protrusion almost like a beak out of one point of the fruit remember I said earlier that a peanut is not a nut because a peanut is a legume well a coconut is not a nut either and neither is an almond we'll learn what those are in a minute in botany a nut

is any indehiscent dry fruit with a single seed and a hard Smooth Wall also nuts tend to have caps on them which are really part of the old flower that fuses together this is true of an acorn which is a nut it's hard walled and has a a cap or a cup on it our last indehiscent dry fruit is grain or a carryopsis which is when the fruit wall and the seed coat are fused and you guessed it this is the fruit type for all the grains such as corn and rice and wheat we'll move

on now to fleshy fruits where just like it sounds the fruit wall becomes soft and fleshy as it matures a droop is the fruit type for some of our most beloved fruits droops are one seeded simple fruits the innermost portion of the fruit wall which is called the endocarp becomes hard and Stony and this is the part we call the pit so think of peaches plums and cherries they all have pits so a pit is a hard covering around the seed the outermost part of the fruit called the exocarp becomes a relatively thin skin and

the middle portion between the skin and the pit becomes either fleshy or fibrous what about a coconut if you've ever seen a fresh coconut you know that it comes in a large fibrous husk so it's also a droop it's the fleshy fruit has a seed that is not enclosed in a hard covering then it's a berry this includes almost all fruits with more than one seed like tomatoes and grapes here's some real botany trivia too what about an avocado it seems to have a pit but the hard thing in the middle is really the seed

not a hard covering around the seed so an avocado is a berry there are two special types of berry-like fruits that I like to mention solely for the fun of saying their names in the grocery store the first is a berry with a leathery rind and the interior of the fruit is divided along SEPTA into the carpals think of an orange this is a special Berry called a hesperidium now think of that same Berry only with a hard rind and you have a peepo which would be a watermelon or a squash our last fleshy simple

fruit is a poem and if you know French you'll already guess that this is the fruit type for an apple a poem is actually an accessory fruit which means it's formed by Parts other than the ovary where is the ovary in an apple it's in the very core and if you slice the Apple just right you can see the papery outer layer around the ovary another accessory fruit is strawberry which isn't a berry at all why not there aren't multiple seeds inside surrounded by a fleshy fruit no in a strawberry the seeds are on the

outside though they are not actually seeds they are the fruits they are the Akins and that's the part we enjoy or the part that we enjoy is the swollen receptacle or the base of the flower so believe it or not there are so many more terms that we did not go over but I wanted to give you the basics as we move forward into identification remember that botany can feel like an overwhelming language but all of these words can be looked up in a book or on the Internet with a lot of drawings and photos

don't be overwhelmed by this material but consider that you're well on your way to speaking like a botanist [Music] foreign [Music]