1. If you are given a section of plant material that you have not seen before, highlight the criteria that you could apply to help you determine if the specimen is a stem, a root or a leaf. Please consider your answer carefully, and use valid criteria only.
2. All higher vascular plants can be grouped into Angiosperm or Gymnosperm. List, and briefly explain the significance of some of the key issues that can be used to separate these groups in terms of their anatomy.
3. Why are some leaves dorsiventrally flattened and others not? Give reasons and examples that substantiate your answer.
4. Give an account of the morphological and structural variations in leaf form.
5. Does leaf form reflect a potential environmental niche? Explain how this relationship may be inferred from a particular structure or structures, and what criteria you would use to make this determination?
6. Stem and leaf structure may be important indicators of the environment in which a plant grows. Look through the exercises in the Virtual plant as well as other relevant references, and select some examples that suggest potential environmental niche occupancy. Your answer should include a table, which lists what you consider to be significant features that are present or absent. State why thecriteria that you have chosen are relevant.
7. Explain why monocotyledons do not produce characteristic secondary growth which is a common feature of many dicotyledonous plants?
8. How is secondary thickening of stems (in palms for example) achieved in monocotyledons? What cell and tissue types are most likely to be involved in generating the secondary thickening?
9. Explain the differences in terms of ontogeny, structure and function, and use tracheids and vessels, or sieve tube members and sieve cells as the specific tissue examples in your answer.
10. Why do some plants develop hollow stems and petioles? Your answer should explore this question with reference to plant architecture.
11. Does leaf...