Botanical exam gems

So here are a few gems from a student exam in Plant Morphology class (Anonymity is entirely respected since this is not mine anyway).  I acknowledge that this is a rather ‘private’  post since many (lay) readers may not spot the issue  or the joke in these answers to the test. I tried to add the basic background information needed to decipher the joker within. Let’s keep in mind that students are supposed to learn  and understand their lesson and a lower treshold in the basics is expected. It is, I think, legitimate to have a good laugh when the mistake is abysmal. Most of these gems are entertaining or cute, to a teacher (though they might drive them to despair). Anyway, some students do have a clear preference (not to say a strong bias already) towards animals but must take the class (it is not optional). It certainly doesn’t reflect their biological level but most likely their (lack of) interest in plant biology.

Warning: some jokes may be lost in translation…

Name the following pollination modes below and give an example for each.

WIND (hint: anemophilous pollination, caracterized by a reduction or a lack in floral pieces such as petals, allowing to free stamens and ease pollen dispersion by the wind; very often stigma also evolved an increased size shape  to ease pollen receipt) :

• a lot of pollen is ready to be spend after a micro-jolt and the pollen is located at top of the flower
• light flowers
  

These are fairly creative answers, and the students are right in trying to link pollination mode with the constraints born on a wind dispersal of pollen. Unfortunately,  finding solutions to a problem doesn’t mean nature came up with these answers…

• plants with stamen in contact with the air allowing for pollen dispersal
  

Hmm… Does it mean other species have suffocating pollen?

• flowers that are wind pollinated have pollen

Of course! So have all flowering plants species.

• ferns are pollinated by the wind
  

No, ferns disperse spores thanks to the wind, but they do not produce pollen grains and certainly aren’t pollinated.

• caracteristics of extrorse flowers whose anthers are  turned outward
  

Having extrorse stamens does not prevent flowers to have petals. Outward is actually the way the stamen opens, not necessarily that it is located outside.

• With regard to the anemophilous pollination, flowers have  air-bearing baglets, sometimes seeds may be winged

Wait… I’m trying to imagine a flower with airbags. Okay, this question is about pollination, you really don’t have to tell us about seeds dispersal, that’s beside the point and just tell us you might be confused.

• e.g.  garlic grain
  

WTF? The relation with pollination?

• anemophibia

I like it when student try a vague guess and think it may work (striking example below)…

INSECTS (hint: entomophilous pollination, caracterized by gorgeous and colourfull petals and/or sepals (i.e. tepals) , often along with a sweet scent –hey, you have to bring pollinators in!) :

• zoophyte, insects when they eat a fruit

You have to be fairly self-confident when you rely on luck to give the right answer. Aren’t insects these creepy flying things around us in summer when we eat fruits?

• zoophilia

Hmm… There you go. Of course, this is not completely wrong, but don’t expect the teacher won’t give you a laugh… (This is probably less fun in English in which the word zoophily does actually exist and the gap with a correct answer is reduced).

• an attractive scent (e.g. honey for bees)

Okay for the scent. You are at an age and at a level in your studies where you should know bees are attracted by rewards such as nectar and pollen, not honey (flowers don’t produce honey, bees do).

• stem, petals and pollen anchored in the middle of the flower, unable to pollinate without bees
  

Wow, I need a scheme for this flower… And what’s this obcession with bees? Aren’t butterflies, flies and beetles possible pollinators too?

flowers pollinated by insects have pistil and carpels

Yes, but so do flowers pollinated by the wind…

feature of introrse flowers, whose pollen is best protected within petals

Hmm… Introrse &t extrorse refer to the way mature stamens open and release their pollen grains. It has little to do whatsoever with protecting pollen, more with dispersal (to the extent to which it changes the odds of selfing).

• e.g. the Hyacinth leaf

Sure! Leaf, stem, flower… This is all far too complicated.

• entrophobia

The feeling of the examiner when (s)he’s grading exams…

• flowers have a special taste, in order to attract insects (that’s starch)

You were so hungry! Don’t confuse taste and scent. Pollinators may have food in mind as they forage through flowers, but they are attracted by scent, not because they are on lunch and tasted the flower…

• pollen is located on stems and moves out thanks to pollinators and winds; flowers are dioid, i.e. they are either female or male, so that we have a germination whenever gametes get in touch
  

Dioid yourself! Pollen is quite indirectly located on stems (and that’s just because the stem bears flowers occasionnally). Pollen grain germinate, but that’s somewhat prior to fertilization (or when gametes are ‘in touch’). And this has nothing to do with having separate sexes…

What are the main characteristics of these pollination modes?

• when pollen falls onto the ground, or when it flies in the air, then pollination happens

OMG! It’s  1. vague, 2. inaccurate, 3. meaningless, & 4. completely beside the point… When the exam falls onto the table, or flies in the air, then one realizes (s)he should have been working a bit more seriously…

In which plants do we find wood? Cite the other name of this tissue and explain its function.

• wood also allows for stocking reserves

Do you find meat in cemeteries? Wood cells are plain dead. No reserves!

• not in monocotyledon gymnospermes, which allows to ease pollination

Huh? That’s not easy to pollinate with pollen of wood, and flowers from the same metal… A plant cannot be both a gymnosperm and a monocot. Plus gymnosperms (e.g. Pines) do have wood. Plus being woody doesn’t impede the least pollination: how would trees make seeds if it were?

• in corn, the wood helps the plant to not be drown

The best answer will stand the flows!

So, logically…, If… she… weighs the same as a duck, she’s made of wood.
And therefore…  A witch!

• in higher plants, like pine cones, this tissue allows for dating

Hmm, I’d really like to see you date the age of a tree from a cone…

• its functions are to sustain the plant and it also has a role of conductance
  

You’ve found the light! …

Define cryptogamy. Give an example.

(Cryptogamy, a vestige from older plant systematics still in use for commodity, is defined as not having apparent sexual organes, i.e. the opposite of flowers. It includes plants such as mosses and ferns.)

• a fertilization mode by which a male – and a female gamete from the same plant fuse
  
• the fact that pollen is not freed, but fused. Fertilization is internal, and the two gametes are inside and thus produce a seed

You confuse cryptogamy and selfing. Were you neighbours during the exam?

• when the fruit has two lives, a normal life and a dormant one

When the student has two lives. A life outside university, and a life outside… university.

• fertilisation between two spores to produce the gametophyte. Oat is a cryptogam.

Spores germinate and give birth to the gametophyte. Spores do not undergo fertilisation, gametes do! Oat is a flowering plant. Its flowers are not showy, but that’s because it is anemophilous…

• when a plant isn’t female nor male

• a family of flowers where reproductive organs are hidden

Yep, except cryptogams do not produce flowers.

• transformation into flowering plants
  

Fast evolution!

• not being able to photosynthesize
  

!?! You confuse cryptogamy & heterotrophy.

• property of some plants to hide their genitals

There we go! Proof an answer can be right and cute…

Based upon your sample, make a floral analysis (…)

• the sample plant bears female flowers. We see the lack of a presence of a pistil, and the presence of stamens

Can the flower possibly be female if you see stamens?

• Bear Garlic (Allium ursinum) is a wind pollinated species, because neither flower colours nor their smell are attractive
  

Almost. But pollinators may not agree with you. First, white can be quite flashy in understorey (and thus well distinct from vegetation) and second a scent associated with flowering time is another sign that, indeed, pollinators are called to a visit.

• the flower belongs to monocots because the nerves in the leaves are parallel

Right. Except that leaves have veins, not nerves. (Note: the two words are phonetically much closer in French so some cuteness is lost in translation here).

Okay. Not too bad, and some are really funny. Unfortunately it’s a somewhat specialist joke level, but I hope some are able to make you smile at least.

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