SN 47 Mea Glor L.
Tumambing Chapter 20: Review Questions
1A-PH
1. The earliest fossils that definitely were vascular land plants belong to ________________, a genus of extinct plants. They branched ____________________, both branches being of equal size and vigor. 2. Draw a plant of Rhynia. Be certain to include the reproductive parts. Now assume that it has a life cycle with an alternation of isomorphic generations and draw a complete life cycle.
3. If Rhynia or its contemporaries were the ancestors to the ferns, how did the gametophytes and sporophytes change during the evolution?
4. In the vascular bundles of flowering plants presented in Chapter 5 (and page 480 in this chapter) protoxylem is closest to the center of the stem, and metaxylem is farther out. Is this an endarch or an exarch arrangement? Seed plants always have just this one arrangement, but what about the early vascular plants. Were they endarch or exarch, or did both types occur originally? 5. The vascular bundles of flowering plants surround a pith, but the earliest vascular plants had no pith. A vascular system with a solid mass of xylem with no pith is called a ____________________. A stele that does not have a pith is called a ________________. 6. Rocks that contain fossils of Rhynia also often contain fossils of Sciadophyton. We know that Rhynia was a sporophyte and that Sciadophyton was a gametophyte. Because they grew together, we suspect that they may be the two generations of a single species. If so, did Rhysonia have an alternation of isomorphic or heteromorphic generations? Also, if this is true, evolution has caused one generation to become more complex, the other to become less complex. Which is which? Explain.
7. There are two alternative hypotheses about the life cycle of the early vascular plants, the transformation hypothesis and the interpolation hypothesis. If Rhynia and Sciadophyton are the two generations of one species, which hypothesis would be favored? Briefly describe the other hypothesis.
8. What are the zosterophyllophytes? How did they differ from rhyniophytes? Why do we think they are related to lycophytes but not to ferns and seed plants?
9. The reconstruction of Asteroxylon in Figure 21-10 shows thin, leaf-like flaps of tissue on the plants surface. What are these called? Did they ever have a stomata in any of the zosterophyllophytes? Did they have vascular bundles? Did they ever become large (Hint: look at Figure 21-13)?
10. What are microphylls? Are they related to the enations of Asteroxylon?
11. The lycophytes once contained many species of large trees that formed extensive forests. Briefly describe plants of Lepidodendron and Sigillaria. Also describe their wood.
12. Name two genera of living lycophytes. What are their common names? About how big do they get? Are they leafy or do they have naked stems? In a plant identification book, they would probably be listed with ferns.
13. Trimerophytes were plants that probably evolved from rhyniophytes but with more derived features. In one feature, certain stems grow longer than others, and thus, rather than having dichotomous branching, they have ____________________ branching (displayed especially by Pertica). Simultaneously, the positioning of branches became more ____________________ and __________________. 14. Describe the evolution of megaphylls. What are telomes?
15. Describe the trimerophytes. From what group did they evolve, and what lines of evolution did they produce? Even though all rhyniophytes and trimerophytes are now extinct, would you consider them unsuccessful?
16. What are the two common names of equisetums? What is the appearance of the plants? Their approximate height? Look at Figure 21-21 and 21-24. Equisetums have strobili (in plant identification, these will be called cones) and canals. Briefly describe the canals and strobili.
17. Ferns first appeared in the Devonian Period. Look at the inside of the back cover. How long ago was the Devonian Period? Unlike all the groups mentioned so far in this chapter, most of this group is still extant, not extinct. About how many species of modern (i.e., not extinct) ferns are there?
18. Name two genera of ferns that are found in deserts. Name two that grow floating on water. One that lives underwater. There are ferns called tree ferns. Do tree ferns have woody trunks with secondary xylem?
19. A very important feature of ferns is shown in Figure 21-29 Their shoot xylem is not solid as it was in the rhyniophytes. In the evolution of ferns and seed plants, there was the evolution of pith. A stele with a pith is called a _________________________. Another significant feature of ferns is that the phloem occurs both to the outer side as well as the inner side of the xylem. Where does it occur in the vascular bundles of flowering plants? 20. You may have noticed that the undersides (but never the upper sides) of fern leaves have brown dots or brown streaks or brown patches. The brown dots are called ______________________ (singular, __________________), clusters of ___________________ where meiosis occurs. If a leaf is carries these structures, the leaf is called a ______________________. 21. When fern spores germinate, they grow into small, simple heart-shaped or ribbon-shaped ______________________ with unicellular ______________________ on the lower surface but with no vascular tissue and no ________________________. 22. Briefly describe eusporangia and leptosporangia. Which is the type that occurs in all other vascular plants? Which is the type that occurs in most ferns?
