Welcome week MSc Plant Diversity plant ID quiz

To help the new MSc Plant Diversity students settle in, and to provide us with a baseline against which we can tailor our teaching, the annual plant ID quiz is now running.  For each of 18 samples the students were asked to name the plant Family, Genus and species and explain why.

How well can you do?  All these items were collected on Whiteknights campus today.  One sample is not strictly a plant but has been treated as so in traditional botany and botanical survey.  Not all are native species.

About Alastair Culham

A professional botanist and biologist with an interest in promoting biological knowledge and awareness to all.
This entry was posted in Flowering Plants, Lichen, Plants. Bookmark the permalink.

10 Responses to Welcome week MSc Plant Diversity plant ID quiz

  1. garances says:

    Can I come and do the MSc all over again!? ;). Good luck to all the new students!

  2. David says:

    1. Plantago lanceolata
    2. Carex divulsa
    3. Achillea millefolium
    4. Trifolium pratense
    5. Knautia arvensis
    6. Marchantia polymorpha
    7. I don’t know anything about lichens
    8. Persicara amplexicaulis
    9. Epilobium montanum
    10. Ranunculus acris
    11. Senecio vulgaris
    12. I’ve not a clue
    13. Medicago lupulina
    14. Mallus sp?
    15. I should like to be able to see the siliques properly, but, as the flowers look as if they may be yellow and I remember that plant growing near the Harborne building, perhaps it is Diplotaxis muralis?
    16. Perhaps caprifoliaceae? Looks like an awful lot of stamens, however.
    17. If the young leaves are folded as they look to be, Agrostis canina? At that level of detail, however, I don’t think I can say what that grass is for certain. You could have given us an inflorescence!
    17. Bellis perennis

    • David says:

      I realised that 16 is Arbutus unedo. My comment on 16 was intended for 12, though I see that it is now wrong.

  3. Dr M says:

    Some good work! I guess Alastair will post the answers before long. Just to say young leaves in Agrostis are not folded! Check the veg key! Dr M

  4. Dr M says:

    Hint: Nr 12 has very distinctive smell when the leaves are crushed… and only 1 native member of this family in UK…

  5. Dr M says:

    Hint: 17 is swollen at base of shoots…

    • David says:

      Arrhenatherum elatius then. I thought I’d read somewhere that Agrostis canina has folded leaves – I know that the other Agrostis species have very finely rolled leaves. Doing grasses from vegetative parts is something I aim to improve on during the MSc.

      Is the family Berberidaceae?

  6. Dr M says:

    Hint: 7 is probably the commonest lichen and its orange!

  7. Thuraiya says:

    actually i put my answers from last week but i dont see them!!

  8. Thuraiya – you put your comments on the individual images – if you go into the slideshow and scroll down you will see each of your comments there.

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