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.
1 – Plantaginaceae – Plantago lanceolata
2a – Cyperaceae – Cyperus
2b
3 – Asteraceae – Achillea millefolium
4
5a
5b
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
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.
Can I come and do the MSc all over again!? ;). Good luck to all the new students!
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
I realised that 16 is Arbutus unedo. My comment on 16 was intended for 12, though I see that it is now wrong.
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
Hint: Nr 12 has very distinctive smell when the leaves are crushed… and only 1 native member of this family in UK…
Hint: 17 is swollen at base of shoots…
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?
Hint: 7 is probably the commonest lichen and its orange!
actually i put my answers from last week but i dont see them!!
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.