5
U N I T
R E V I E W
UNDE RSTAN DIN G CON CEPTS
True-False
In your notebook, indicate whether each statement
is true or false. Correct each false statement.
1. Vascular plants must live where there is a
steady supply of water.
2. Mosses and their relatives live where there is a
steady supply of water.
3. Mosses have stems, leaves, and roots.
4. Xylem moves water and minerals up the stem
of a plant.
5. Phloem moves minerals up the stem of the plant.
6. Plants produce food, fuel, flavourings,
fragrances, and pharmaceuticals for humans
to use.
7. Food produced in the leaves is transported
through the stem in the form of glucose.
8. All plant tissues originate from one type of
tissue called meristem.
9. The constant loss of water from a plant’s leaves
is called respiration.
10. The root hair is a specialized epidermal cell.
11. The root hair is covered with a waxy cuticle for
protection.
12. The growth and development of a plant is
controlled by self-produced enzymes.
13. The main function of any root system is
support for the plant.
14. Vitamin C is an essential nutrient for plants.
15. Vitamin C is an essential nutrient for humans.
16. Plants help to cycle energy through the
biosphere.
17. The lateral meristem is an adaptation to life as
a plant.
18. A climax community is characterized by its
stability.
19. A boreal forest climax community is usually
associated with annual precipitation greater
than 75 cm/year.
Multiple Choice
In your notebook, write the letter of the best
answer for each of the following questions.
20. Which of these are seedless vascular plants?
(a) green algae
(d) princess pine
(b) purple algae
(e) whisk fern
(c) sphagnum moss
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MHR • Plants: Anatomy, Growth, and Functions
21. The phloem is vascular tissue that
(a) consists of dead tubular cells
(b) transports sugar from the leaves to all parts
of the plant
(c) is present only in the stems
(d) transports water from the roots to the leaves
(e) has no specialized function
22. The leaves of most angiosperms are thin yet
flat, and have a large surface area. This
structure enhances the plant’s ability to
(a) take in water
(b) balance and stay upright
(c) store food
(d) perform cellular respiration
(e) perform photosynthesis
23. Parallel veins in a leaf would indicate that the
plant is
(a) nonvascular
(d) dicot
(b) herbaceous
(e) monocot
(c) woody
24. Which of the following is not a dicot?
(a) lettuce
(d) dandelion
(b) maple
(e) grass
(c) moss
25. The primary function of plant leaves is to
(a) support the plant
(b) produce flowers
(c) take in water
(d) shade the roots
(e) trap sunlight for photosynthesis
26. The veins of a leaf contain the
(a) cuticle
(d) vascular tissue
(b) epidermis
(e) meristem
(c) endodermis
27. Cells in the apical meristem that cause a root to
grow longer are found
(a) just behind the root cap
(b) along the side of the root
(c) in the centre of the root
(d) at the top of the root where it joins the stem
(e) in the stem itself
28. Most photosynthesis takes place in
(a) the cells of the cortex
(b) the cells of the spongy layer
(c) the cells of the palisade layer
(d) the cells of the vascular tissue
(e) the guard cells around the stomata
29. To control water loss from a plant, the size of
the stomata is reduced by
(a) xylem tissue
(d) guard cells
(b) phloem tissue
(e) palisade cells
(c) spongy tissue
30. Which of the following statements comparing
fibrous and taproot systems is incorrect?
(a) Fibrous root systems are common in grasses.
(b) Dandelions have taproots.
(c) Taproots store food more efficiently than
fibrous roots.
(d) Plants with taproots prevent erosion more
efficiently than plants with fibrous roots.
(e) Taproots are able to reach deep into the soil
for water.
31. Touching the leaves of Mimosa piduca causes
them to fold up rapidly. After a short time, the
leaves begin to unfold. This is an example of
(a) phototropism
(d) gravitropism
(b) geotropism
(e) nastic movement
(c) thigmotropism
Short Answers
In your notebook, write a sentence or a short
paragraph to answer each of the following questions.
32. Describe some plant adaptations that allow
plants to live in terrestrial environments.
33. Define “stomata.”
34. Define “nonvascular plant.”
35. If you examine fossils that are 500 million
years old, could you find evidence of plants?
Explain why or why not. What about fossils
that are one billion years old?
36. Describe the earliest plants to appear in the
fossil record.
37. How do the stomata regulate the amount of
water that escapes from a plant?
38. How does the cuticle prevent water loss?
39. Describe the adaptive advantage of vascular
tissue.
40. Some mosses that live in deserts dry out, and
all their metabolic activities cease during a dry
spell. At the next rainfall, however, they
revive, grow, and reproduce. Explain why this
ability is adaptive.
41. What are the differences between phototropism,
gravitropism, and thigmotropism?
42. Why can plants with xylem and phloem grow
larger than plants without vascular tissue?
43. How do the stems of dicots differ from the
stems of monocots?
44. How do the leaves and flowers of dicots differ
from the leaves and flowers of monocots?
45. List the structural functions of a root. What
other functions does the root perform?
46. Fossil fuels (such as coal, oil, and natural gas)
are being produced naturally right now in rock
layers, and oceans all around the planet. Yet,
fossil fuels are considered to be non-renewable.
Explain.
47. What is the primary function of the leaf of a
plant? What are some other functions?
48. What are the functions of the root and the stem?
49. Where is meristem tissue located in a mature
plant? in a developing plant?
50. Plants play many vital roles in our
environment. List three of these and briefly
note the importance of each.
51. What is the role of energy in plant growth and
development? State the form(s) of energy
involved.
52. List the three principal goals of agricultural
and other plant-based industries.
53. List four essential nutrients required by plants,
and state where each nutrient comes from and
how it enters the plant.
54. What environmental factors hinder the growth
and development of plants?
55. Explain how plants survive the negative effects
of the factors you identified in question 54.
56. Explain how plants survive at night when
they cannot perform photosynthesis to make
glucose.
57. Name a plant that is a consumer rather than a
producer and explain how it gets its food.
58. Name a plant that is a parasite and explain
how it gets much of its food.
59. Contrast the use of land by nomadic huntergatherers with that of early agriculturists. Refer
to area and time in your answer.
60. By 10 000 B.C.E., nomadic hunter-gatherers in
the near east already had two of the three
technologies needed to become agriculturists.
Name these two forms of technology. What
third technology did they then develop?
61. State the intended effect of a monoculture.
What unintended effects often follow?
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62. Define the term “soil fertility,” and list four
classes of technology for improving soil fertility.
63. What essential mineral nutrients may be added
to soil by using farm manure technology? What
about commercial chemical fertilizers? List at
least one benefit and one objection for each
technology.
affected Earth’s biosphere? How has it affected
Earth’s human population?
64. What options do modern farm managers have
for eliminating crop pests such as insects and
fungi? List at least one benefit and one
objection for each technology.
66. What chemical growth regulator or inhibitors
would you use
(a) if you were trying to delay the ripening of a
fruit?
(b) if you wanted to stimulate the ripening of a
fruit?
(c) if you wanted to stimulate seed germination?
(d) if you wanted to promote bud growth in
some flowers?
65. The agricultural revolution arose through the
use of technology to increase selected plant
populations for human use. How has this
67. What is artificial selection? Give examples of
how people have modified plants through
artificial selection.
IN QU IRY
68. Design an experiment that NASA could use to
determine the difference between how
gravitropism affects one species of plant on
Earth and how gravitropism affects the same
species on a space flight. What factors may be
hard to keep the same in both environments?
root, horsetail, some grass with fibrous roots,
ferns, a small gymnosperm, a vegetable garden.
71. Design an investigation to determine whether
the stem, leaf, or root is the first to emerge from
a germinating seed. What is your hypothesis?
How will you test it?
69. Obtain an enlarged photocopy of the tree rings
shown in this photograph. Measure the width
of each ring by determining the distance from
one edge of the dark part of the ring to the edge
of the light part of the ring. Each increment is
related to one year’s growth. Design a table to
record your results. What information can you
obtain from the tree rings?
70. Design a plan to landscape the lawn around a
public fountain. The lawn is 10 m by 30 m. At
the side farthest from the fountain, there is a
low-lying wet area. Right beside the fountain
there is rock with a shallow layer of soil. In the
middle of the lawn, the soil is deep. Draw a
sketch of your design, putting in some of the
following plants: mosses, a tall tree with a tap
COMMU N ICATIN G
72. Explain how nonvascular plants like mosses
function without a specialized vascular system.
73. Explain the functions of the xylem and phloem
in a vascular plant. Use diagrams to help
explain the functions.
74. Summarize how phloem transports food within
a plant. Trace the movement of excess glucose
from where it is produced in a leaf to the area
where it is stored.
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75. Develop a flowchart to illustrate how water
moves into a vascular plant from the soil, up
through the plant, and out the leaves. Label
your flowchart.
76. Debate the benefits and drawbacks of
genetically modifying plants. Prepare a
summary for one side of the debate and defend
your answers with examples. Use this
summary as your introduction to the debate.
77. Describe how stomata open and close in a leaf.
78. Describe how commercially produced plant
hormones such as auxin-like growth regulators,
cytokinin-like regulators, and gibberellic acidlike regulators, are similar to hormones
produced in the plant. Why are commercial
growth regulators produced? Give examples
of the responses promoted by each of the
commercial growth regulators named above.
79. In your notebook, copy the concept map shown
here and complete it by using the following
groups of plants: monocots, vascular plants,
non-seed bearing plants, nonvascular plants,
angiosperms, dicots, gymnosperms, seed
bearing plants.
Plants
Examples
moss
Examples
horsetail
Examples
pine tree
Examples
rice
80. Under each of the groups named in your concept
map, add some more examples of the group.
Examples
maple tree
M A KIN G CON N ECTION S
81. An old, run-down farm is sold. The new
owners decide to use fertilizer to add nutrients
to the depleted soil. A lake near the farm is a
healthy ecosystem where floating algae and
aquatic plants are growing in balance with the
animals and other organisms that live in the
lake. Aerobic (oxygen-dependent) bacteria are
the major decomposers. How might the
fertilizer reach this ecosystem? How might the
fertilizer affect species composition in the
ecosystem?
82. Suppose a particular herbicide is designed to
kill wild oats, which is a monocot. Evaluate the
advantages and disadvantages of genetically
modifying wheat or corn to make it resistant to
this herbicide.
83. You are a specialist in soil science and you
must communicate the latest information about
increasing the fertility of farm soil in your area.
You decide to write a series of articles called
“Improving Soil Fertility” for your local
newspaper. Your articles will be on green
manure, crop rotation, animal manure, and
chemical fertilizers. Choose one of these topics
and write your first article for the newspaper.
In your article, be sure to outline the
advantages and disadvantages of this topic.
85. Summarize the use of five plants that have
been or are currently used in medicines.
COURSE CHALLENGE
Consider the following points as you continue
to prepare for your Biology Course Challenge.
• Parts of plants can often be used to identify
the species of plant (or at least to which group the
plant belongs).
• Species or groups of plants can be used to
identify environments. As people walk through an
environment, they often collect parts of plants
(such as pieces of leaves, mosses, seeds, and
spines). How could you use this information?
• What a person eats can sometimes give some
indication of where the person lives. Rice, wheat,
corn, and cassava are staple foods in various parts
of the world. Perhaps analysis of stomach contents
could assist you in your Biology Course Challenge.
84. If you were planting a large garden to feed
yourself and your family, which monocots and
which dicots would you choose to plant? Give
reasons for your choices.
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