I thought this assignment was pretty fun, except for the fact that after I had completed 3 of my dissections my phone, with all my pictures, gave out on me. Luckily I had quite a bit of down time while I was in Point Lay and was able to the lens attachment with my iPad to do them all over again. Point Lay is a little warmer than Barrow, but still along the coast of the Arctic Ocean. The flora there was just starting to bloom, so it really worked out for me. Instead of creating individual pictures, I put all of my dissections into a power point presentation. I thought it was pretty neat to look closer to the flowers and really understand how different they are. Each of the flowers I dissected were so very different from the next!
Well done Katie! Excellent dissections, photography and accompanying text. For the Asteraceae remember that the calyx is highy reduced and is actually the pappus (you can see them nicely on slide 6 – the hairy part of the inferior ovary. What you are seeing on the outside of the composite head are the phyllaries, they are bracts forming an involucre, thus involucral bracts, each flower (ray and disk floret) is also subtended by a bract, those are the receptacular bracts (or chaff). The sunflower family is pretty complex in this regard. The Yellow lousewort xs through the ovary shows axile placentation. There are just so many ovules/ seeds attached, it is hard to make out the septa, but you can very nicely see that there are two carpels in this example, well done. Those extensions of the leaves on the Mountain aven are the stipules, which are characteristic of the leaves of many members of the Rosaceae family. Thanks for your well executed dissections!
Wow, Katie, your ppt really impressed me, in both scope and detailed analysis. And your last name indicates that you were destined to study this topic. Great job. Laura