Lab+10+Plants


 * EXERCISE 1. PLANT PARTS AND FUNCTIONS **

Here is the celery before it is half submerged in dyed water.

Here is the celery as it soaks.

Here is the celery after it has soaked for an hour. One can see that the dye has been absorbed by the celery's vascular system, and the dye has spread up into the veins of the plant.

Here is a picture of a cross section of a piece of celery. Because the majority of our Cyclops were not working, our TA just told us to take a cross sectional picture with our cameras. In this cross sectional picture, one is able to see that where they majority of the dye is concentrated, is where the majority of the plant's vascular system's activity takes place seeing as the celery absorbed some of the dye into it's vascular system. In this picture, we see the numerous components in the celery's stem tissue such as the middle most section of the stem of celery called the pith, where the majority of the dye is located, the xylem where still a large majority of the dye is located but the xylem surrounds the pith, then more further from the center of the piece of celery are the cambium, and phloem which both are not heavily concentrated in dye.

1) Stems- The stem is similar to a straw in that it carries nutrients to and from all other parts of the plant. The stem consists of four internal sections: the pith, xylem, cambium, and phloem. Source: []

2) Leaves- The purpose of leaves is to capture carbon dioxide and sunlight, and to convert it to carbohydrates, while loosing as little water as possible as the whole process takes place. Source: []

3) Buds- Normally plant buds are covered in a hard shell, which protects it's rapidly cell diving flower or blossom inside from the cold winds summoning spring. Source: [].

4) Roots- Keep the plant firmly positioned emerged and embedded in the soil, while absorbing and storing nutrients for the plant. Source: []

5) Flowers- The main function of a flower is to reproduce. Through insects or the wind, pollen spreads from a male flower to the ovules of a female flower and fertilization occurs which overall produces seeds which when planted produce another flower. Source: [].

6) Fruit- serves as a strong protection for the seed encapsulated within, but also, fruit serves as a way to germinate the plant in that animals eat the fruit thus carrying the seeds of the fruit to new places via bowel movements away from where the original fruit was picked and eaten. Source: [].

7) Seeds- are slightly similar to eggs in that there is an embryo insight, as well as fatty tissue for the embryo to feed off of, and there is a hard outer shell to protect the growing embryo inside. Source: [].

For some reason there is a large gap between the image above and this text. I apologize I have tried everything to get rid of the blank space, but I cannot do anything.

1) Transpiration is when water evaporates from a plant while the plants stoma is open as it opens to take in sunlight. Source: []

2) Capillary action is when the cohesion between water molecules causes water to spread unprompted gaps of a rock, or into the absorbent texturized tissue of a paper towel. A plant has many crevices whether within it's vascular tissue or on the surface of it's leaves.

In our experiment, I mainly saw capillary action when the dye was drawn up into the veins of the celery plant.

2) The xylem and phloem are found in the bark of a tree. Source: []

3) Yes, transpiration does occur, because water is leaving tree via it's falling leaves.

**EXERCISE 2: OSMOSIS AND DIFFUSION **


 * || Starting color || Color after 15 minutes ||
 * Solution in beaker (iodine and water) || Clear || Slightly yellow but mainly clear ||
 * Solution in bag (starch and water) || Foggy white || Dark Purple ||

Before alloted time is over, water is clear, and starch and water inside of bag are cloudy.

After 15 minutes, the starch turns purple because the iodine permeates through the bag.

A) 1. Diffusion- Movement of molecules from areas of higher to lower concentration. 2. Osmosis- Movement of molecules through a semi-permeable membrane from an area of high level concentration which equalizes the levels on both sides of the membrane. 3. In diffusion, there is movement of molecules from high to low concentration, but osmosis is the actual pearmeation of particules through the membrane which equalizes the levels of concentration on both sides.

Sources: [], [].

4. Iodine is called an indicator because it literally indicates levels of high or low concentration by mainly changing the molecules color.

5. Molecules tend to move from high to low concentration.

6. It means that it is not fully permeable in that permeation is not instant, and it takes a while for molecules to permeate throughout its layers.

B) 1. The baggie is more concentrated in startch, because it has the starch within it. 2. The beaker is more concentrated in iodine originally but after permeation, it appeared as though both baggy and beaker were equal in iodine content. 3. Baggie 4. Beaker 5. Beaker

C) 1. Into the bag 2. Out of the bag 3. Purple in the baggie, and clear or slightly yellow or purplish outside of the baggie. 4. Yellow in the baggie, and purple outside of the baggie in the beaker. 5. Starch in baggie will turn purple.

E) 1. The solution in the baggie turned purple whereas the solution outside of the baggie was a clear light yellowish barely yellow at all basically clear. 2. The starch turned purple whereas the water with iodine surrounding the baggie with starch and water inside of it did not turn purple. 3. Yes, the baggie is selectively permeable because the starch and water in the baggie turned purple which proved that the iodine was permeating the baggie and indication the high to low concentration. 4. No, because originally in filling the baggie with water, no water permeated through the baggie. It was only the iodine and starch which caused the permeation. 5. Yes there was a slight amount of net gain in the water in that the iodine with the water permeated through the bag.