I think your key was good to sort out the given plants! only issue I had was the photo was a little blurry, but that’s not an issue with the key. Good job 🙂
Dear Taylor,
the key works pretty good, but as Dylan says it is a bit hard to see. Be careful with the first couplet, on the left it states: “trees & trunks”, and the right states: “leaves”. Plant 2 also has leaves, and does not have a trunk, so something needs to be adjusted here to get those two under the same heading… perhaps it would be better to use reduced leaves (needle-like) or needles vs. leaves on the right. Somebody else also commented on the leaves in plant 2 being almost needle-like. For the couplet on the right you are using stamens (plant 3) and trichomes (plant 4). This makes sense but it does not really give us enough information to know that is unique about the stamens in plant 3, I would add “numerous stamens” vs. few in plant 4, and similarly you have trichomes on the leaves and the ovary in plant 4, but plant 3 is pretty hairy as well. You should select a character that differs more between these two, and the fact that plant 4 has flowers aggregated in catkins is pretty unique, while plant 3 has a single terminal flower with numerous pistils. You have a good start to your key, you should elaborate a bit and make it fit the mutually exclusive statements we strive for when creating a dichotomous key.
I think your key was good to sort out the given plants! only issue I had was the photo was a little blurry, but that’s not an issue with the key. Good job 🙂
Dear Taylor,
the key works pretty good, but as Dylan says it is a bit hard to see. Be careful with the first couplet, on the left it states: “trees & trunks”, and the right states: “leaves”. Plant 2 also has leaves, and does not have a trunk, so something needs to be adjusted here to get those two under the same heading… perhaps it would be better to use reduced leaves (needle-like) or needles vs. leaves on the right. Somebody else also commented on the leaves in plant 2 being almost needle-like. For the couplet on the right you are using stamens (plant 3) and trichomes (plant 4). This makes sense but it does not really give us enough information to know that is unique about the stamens in plant 3, I would add “numerous stamens” vs. few in plant 4, and similarly you have trichomes on the leaves and the ovary in plant 4, but plant 3 is pretty hairy as well. You should select a character that differs more between these two, and the fact that plant 4 has flowers aggregated in catkins is pretty unique, while plant 3 has a single terminal flower with numerous pistils. You have a good start to your key, you should elaborate a bit and make it fit the mutually exclusive statements we strive for when creating a dichotomous key.