The genus of My Plants
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The genus of this plant is easy, basically what it is, fern. There are a few different types of ferns on our property, but this fern is the only type present in my plot. Something funny comes to mind when I see these types of ferns. I remember when I was younger when my friends and I would collect tons of these ferns, rip the leaves off, and use them as spears to throw at each other. They held up surprisingly well due to how they are built.
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This little cluster of flowers are called angiosperms which is the genus of any plant that produces flowers. My inference on these flowers is that they don't need very much sunlight to grow because they are found surrounded by grass that is whole feet taller. They seem to thrive pretty well in my plot seeing as how there is quite a lot of them.
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This plant here is probably my worst enemy, of plants that is. This is a stinging nettle and sadly, there is a ton of them in my plot. The genus of this plant is angiosperm and the leaves that it produces are dicot because of the multiple veins or stems which are easy to see on the tops of the leaves. I'm assuming that stinging nettles will last a while in their environment because of the painful stings that the undersides of the leaves will give anything that touches them. This "stinging" is probably a defense mechanism of sorts to help the plant survive.
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This yellow flower is yet another type of angiosperm. I found it very interesting that I could only find like three of these flowers in my whole plot. Also, they were right next to each other. My prediction on this fact is that they need los of sun to grow and seeing as how my plot is about overrun by grass, these little flowers don't have very many places in which to grow. (They were found on the edge of the grass where the sun could reach them)
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This is yet another picture of a flower, or in other words, an angiosperm. Both pictures are of the same flower, but the one on the left is just a little farther along. As you can see in the second picture, I had to pull on of the pedals away to see the stamen and stigma which are the reproductive organs in flowers.
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All three of these pictures are of close-ups of the grass. The genus of this grass is also angiosperm but the leaves are called monocot because of the single vein or stem. Something else I noticed about the monocots, in my plot at least, is that they have a way more defined or straight structure while the dicots are more round. Some of the blades of grass, like the one in the center picture are drying out and dying. This could be from lack of water or it could have possibly reached the end of its lifespan. The picture on the right shows what the grass stems actually look like. The stem is layered like an onion and very strong.
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I found this moss on the shaded side of the post. All mosses are given the genus name of bryophyte. I found it interesting that the moss only grew on the shaded side and the shaded side also happened to be the north side. I know that the story behind moss growing on the north sides of trees isn't true but how about on fence posts?:) This moss is also very dry and flaky to the touch.
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When the class met at lake Sacagawea, I remember one of the students pointing out a plant similar to this one. I never thought before that this was actually a living organism but after that day, I know that it is actually a living fungi. When you look closely, you can see that these fungi that live on trees have a very unique and cool looking structure.
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This plant here is also an angiosperm, and like the grass, its leaves are monocots. Directly behind the plant, is some moss that grew on a dead alder branch. After looking at this picture and the other one with moss on the post, I wondered if different types of moss didn't grow on different types of wood and trees? I thought this was an interesting find.