Plant Unit Reflection

Prior to the Plant Unit, I never fully realized exactly how much variety and complexity there is in plant life. I never looked past my nose, so to speak, and saw that there truly is a difference in the types of plants around the world. Naturally, since we all grew up learning the basic general terms for different types of plants (i.e. tree, flower, grass), we don’t open our eyes enough to see that there is, in fact, an extremely large variety of species of plants other than just “tree” or “flower”, despite our childhood beliefs. It’s strange because we may know that there are multiple species out there of a certain type of plant. However, we still don’t tend to realize exactly how many there are in existence. This unit assisted me in the discovery that there are various ways different plant life are classified. In addition, there are diverse life spans that can determine where a plant is identified in the world of genera and types of species. [73][7/7]

Throughout the Plant Unit, there were several instances where I was able to pick up and collect knowledge through collective learning. One of the most interesting components I found through my learning process was how diverse plant species really are. There are several ways to determine what group a plant is qualified for in the types of species out there. As a matter of fact, there are different steps to take when figuring out where on the list a certain type plant belongs. For example, when it comes to determining where a flowering plant lies, there are many steps to go over. This process is one that botanists came up with way back when. Basically, they begin with classifying a flowering plant into one of two groups based off of what seed type they come from. The two groups are based off of the number of cotyledons their seed contains. Cotyledons are the embryonic leafs inside of a seed. The first group is the monocot group, which is pretty common. The monocot consists of one cotyledon in the embryo of its seed. A few examples of monocots are corn, rice, and wheat as well as lilies, grasses, and irises. The second collection consists of dicots, which contain two cotyledons in their embryos. Some basic dicots are peanuts and trees that lose their leaves when autumn comes around. Although that may seem complex enough, that’s not the only category flowering plants are put into in order to put a label on them (as in what type of plant they are in technical terms). They are also labeled by their lifespan and occasionally by their stem type as well. There are three types of lifespans when it comes to the plant identification process. The first is the annual lifespan. This is, as its name suggests, the lifespan that complete its full cycle in a single year’s time. The second is the biennial lifespan, which completes its full cycle in a total of two years. Finally, there is the perennial lifespan, which finishes its life cycle in over the course of two years. [148][18/21]

Post the Plant Unit, I found out that, thanks to botanists all over the world, we can obtain a better