Diario del proyecto Angiosperms

I chose to look at Spotted Jewelweed (also known as Wild touch-me-not) on OneZoom and found that it was placed under eukaryotes -> plants -> land plants (as opposed to algae/aquatic plants) -> vascular plants (angiosperms fall under this category) -> flowering plants -> eudicots (a division that makes up ~75% of all angiosperms) -> balsam family (includes the genus of my observation, "Impatiens").

Since all angiosperms are vascular plants, all our observations have the common adaptations of the waxy cuticle and stomata. The cuticle prevents water loss while the stomata regulates the movement of water vapour, carbon dioxide, etc. in and out of the plant.

One unique adaptation of Nodding Beggarticks is that it holds the head of the plant downwards to help promote seed dispersal. This adaptation is also evident in the name of the plant as "nodding" refers to the flower head hanging down. Additionally, the seeds are hooked and likely to become latched on people, animals, etc. which also allows the plant to spread its seeds efficiently.

*******I accidentally submitted this as a comment under Anita's post rather than its own journal post

1. The taxonomy of Echinacea purpurea, also known as the purple coneflower, can be described through six classifications. It can be located on the phylogenetic tree in the following order, from kingdom to species: kingdom Plantae (plants), phylum Tracheophyta (vascular plants), class Angiospermae (flowering plants), order Asterales (dicotyledonous flowering plants), family Asteraceae, genus Echinacea, and species Echinacea purpurea.
2. The fruit is an adaptation characteristic of only flowering plants (ovule is fertilized within an ovary, that matures into a fruit), and is an advantage in terms of protection and seed propagation. The fruit that encompasses the seed provides the seed added protection. The fruit also aids in seed propagation as the fruit can be food for animals, who eat the fruit and disperse the seed to new locations (like squirrels how squirrels bury acorns), the fruit may grow silky hairs that can be dispersed with the wind, or have hooks that can attach to an animal passing by and disperse elsewhere. This is a huge evolutionary advantage as the seed can escape density-dependent or distance-dependent mortality (a wildfire, an epidemic, competitive plants) and can germinate in new sites with a high probability of survival. Don't keep your eggs in the same basket, similarly, don't keep your offspring all in the same area to increase the survival rate of your lineage!
3. Asclepias syriaca, known as the common milkweed, produces a fruit called a follicle, which dries at maturity and splits on one side to release multiple seeds: fruit that opens and releases the seeds by itself are described to be dehiscent. The advantage of dehiscent fruit is that it does not rely on other organisms for seed propagation as they have their own ejection methods, whereas fleshy fruit, for example, rely on codependent organisms that will eat the flesh around the seed and drop the seed elsewhere. In the case of the milkweed, each individual seed within the follicle has silky hairs so it can be caught in the wind and land far away to germinate.