Morphology and Evolution of Vascular Plants Laboratory

Spring 2005

Heather Driscoll

Office: 225D Marsh Life Science (MLS)

Mail: box in Botany Office -120B MLS

Email:

Office phone: 656-0426

Office hours: by appointment

Welcome to Botany 108 Lab! The exercises in your laboratory manual are designed to supplement the lecture portion of the course by giving you direct contact with living, preserved, and fossil vascular plants for learning about plant morphology, and prepared microscope slides of vascular plant cells and tissues to aid in learning about plant anatomy. The structure, function, and reproduction of vascular plants will be emphasized in the lab exercises and quizzes. After a brief introduction at the start of each lab, you will work through the assigned exercises outlined in the Botany 108 Lab Manual at your own pace. I encourage you to ask questions as you do the labs.

Although a formal notebook is not required, I strongly encourage you tomake detailed drawings and take careful notes for each lab exercise, as your these will serve as an important study guide for lab quizzes and lecture exams for this course. Emphasize careful observation rather than artistic ability. Your drawings should be detailed enough so that they serve as useful study guides for lab quizzes and lecture exams.

What to bring to lab

~Botany 108 Laboratory Manual

~Gifford and Foster text, Evolution of Vascular Plants

~loose-leaf notebook paper and/or unlined paper for your sketches (OPTIONAL - you’re welcome to use the reverse side of the pages in your lab manual instead)

~colored pencils (OPTIONAL)

Expectations

Always read the assigned laboratory exercise carefully before coming to lab.

Attendance is mandatory. If you must miss a lab, contact me ahead of time whenever possible. You are responsible for promptly making up any work due or quizzes given on the day that you missed (i.e. before the end of the week that you missed lab).

There are compound and dissecting microscopes in the bench cabinets. Please keep them clean and put them away carefully. Remember to tidy up your work area before you leave the lab – throw away any plant material in the trash and wipe your bench top clean. Another botany lab shares these bench tops with us.

Quizzes

There will be SIX quizzes in Botany 108 lab; two of these will be take-home quizzes. Quizzes will be a combination of viewing slides, making drawings, and answering questions about previous lab material. Quizzes will not be cumulative.

Grading

Your lab grade is worth 120 points (20 points possible for each quiz) and composes 25% of your Botany 108 course grade.

BOTANY 108 LABORATORY SCHEDULE

DateTopicHand-out/inIn class___

Jan. 31Introduction to the vascular

plant body

Feb. 07LycopodialesQuiz 1-Take home

Feb 14Heterosporous lycophytesQuiz 1 DUE

Feb. 21President’s Day – No lab

Feb. 28Primitive plantsQuiz 2

Mar. 07Equisetophytes

Mar. 14Eusporangiate ferns andQuiz 3

Polypodiales, part I

Mar. 21Spring break – No lab

Mar. 28Polypodiales, part II, and the

heterosporous ferns

Apr. 04PsilotalesQuiz 4

Apr. 11Cycads and seed ferns

Apr. 18ConifersQuiz 5

Apr. 25Angiosperms IQuiz 6 – Take home

May 02Angiosperms IIQuiz 6 DUE