What?

Pine Tree

Where?

Lake Harriet Rose Gardens

So What?

I knew that I would find Pine trees here that I would be able to get cones from.

What?

A scale from a female cone and a male cone

Where?

From the tree in the photo above

So What?

I was unable to get a good photo of the microsporangia, but you can see the megasporangia on the scale. My borrowed camera doesnt work so well in close up

After dissecting these cones, I conclude they're both megasporangia. The cone on the right was collected from the bottom of the tree (where the males hang out) and the cone on the left was collect from the top of the tree (where female cones reside). The ovulales are at the very bottom, underneath the other plant material. One website said that male arborvitae cones are found on the tips of the plants, these were from the tips, but I don't think they're male. What do others see? Let me know.

CONES

WHAT: A gymnosperm (pine tree) and dissected cones
WHERE: my front yard
SO: I chose this tree because it was in my front yard, and very accessible. On the right is a scale from the female cone, and I think you can see the shapes of the megasporangia (kind of shaped like a heart?). On the left is a male cone with some of the scales removed. It is too small of a cone to see the microsporangia on the scales.

What?

I believe that this is an ornamental crab apple tree in a grove of other ornamental crab apple trees.

Where?

The Lake Harriet Rose Garden

So What?

I was intrigued by the fact that some of these trees still had branches full of berries and some of them had lost nearly all of their berries. I do not know why this would be, but they seemed like candidates for quantitative traits of inheritance.

My plants have different size leaves. See? They're great.

This is a look at the quantitative differences among rose bushes in the mall area of the St. Paul campus. Some bushes seem to have more flowers than others.

WHAT: A group of thyme plants
WHERE: my home in South Minneapolis
SO: This is a picture of my thyme patch, which is not a single plant, but many that I planted from seeds. This summer I trimmed them back after they flowered, and they started growing again. An important quantitative element to these plants is the number of leaves that are on it. Since thyme is an herb, a desirable thyme plant would have vigorous leaf growth. You may notice that the plants in the back are taller than those in the front, also a quantitative measure. This is due to the way the sun shines in the window....an environmental influence.

What: Berry bushes, short and squat
Where: Outside the Student Center, St. Paul Campus
So: The quantitative trait I am displaying is the amount of berries per shrub. Some of the shrubs, like the shrub in the foreground of this picture, had plenty of berries, while some of the shrubs in the background did not exhibit as many berries.

What: A hesperidium from an orange tree
Where: From a local grocery store
So: It is interesting to think of this orange as a 'hesperidium' instead of just as a fruit! I didn't realize fruit could be classified into so many different categories.

What: A dry, indehiscent sunflower fruit
Where: Found at a local convenience store
So: It is hard for me to wrap my mind around the fact that a nut is really a fruit. It is fun to consider all of the possible sizes of 'fruits', that they range from coconuts all the way down to sunflower seeds!

What?
A Hesperidium fruit - an orange

Where?
In my kitchen

So What?
This is a "seedless" orange. It's been bred to reduce the size of the seeds so that they don't get in the way when you're eating it. They are about the size of a grain of salt in this picture.

What?
A dry indehiscent fruit, an achene, a sunflower seed.

Where?
In my Kitchen.

So What?
It was a gift from a friend. It was from her favorite sunflower to plant. She gave me quite a few.

This is an example of a Fleshy Fruit.

This is an example of a Dehiscent Dry Fruit.

LIMA BEAN

WHAT: Lima bean
WHERE: from my garden in South Minneapolis.
SO: This is a dry, dehiscent fruit with the ovary wall split open at the seam.