Yichen's Journal Entry on Flowering Plants

I choose Pygmy Water-Lily from my observations. To determine the phylogeny placement, I first noted that this species clearly belongs to Plantae and it has flowers. This quickly helped me to narrow down my choices to angiosperms. Since water-lily is a common plant, so it wasn't difficult to locate genus Nymphaea by following picture of the descendants from each splits on the Tree of Life from OneZoom.

One adaptation of all the observations in the project is that flowers are always at the tip of the plant. I suppose this is evolved in order to best attract pollinators like insects. It would be less visible to them if flowers are hidden behind leaves or in between branches.

A special adaptation from one of my observations, the water lilies, is that their flowers close around sunset but open again tomorrow sunrise. It is speculated that water lilies do so because their pollinators are diurnal. Opening petals every morning can prevent the pollens from being eaten by nocturnal animals. This can also protect the flower from nighttime frost or morning dew. In my observation I have included pictures taken in the afternoon and at dusk, showing the difference in the status of petals. This habit gives water lilies the common name of "sleeping lilies" in Chinese.

Publicado el 21 de septiembre de 2020 a las 05:24 PM por yichen-li