Biologist ___________________________
Date ______________
Characteristics of Plants
What Plants Need Members of the kingdom Plantae are eukaryotes that have cell walls containing cellulose and
that carry out photosynthesis. Plants need sunlight, gas exchange, and water and minerals to survive. Use the
terms below to label what plants need and gases they exchange.
carbon dioxide
minerals
oxygen
sunlight
water
1. The basic needs of plants can be grouped into three categories. What are the three categories?
2. Why do plants need sunlight?
3. Plants need all of the following for photosynthesis, except
A. sunlight.
C. carbon dioxide.
B. flowers.
D. water.
4. Plants exchange gases with the surrounding air through their
5. Is the following statement true or false? Plants are multicellular prokaryotes.
The History and Evolution of Plants
The cladogram shows plant evolution. The circles represent important adaptations in plant evolution.
Follow the directions.
1. Circle the plants that have true water-conducting tissue.
2. Draw an X on the plants that have seeds.
Green algae
Mosses
and
relatives
Ferns and
relatives
Conebearing
plants
Seeds
Plant ancestor
Embryo
formation
True waterconducting
tissue
Flowering
plants
Flowers; seeds
enclosed in
fruit
3. Which plants have seeds?
4. Which plants have flowers and fruits?
5. Which evolved earlier, seeds or vascular tissue?
6. Answer the following question in one or two sentences. How did the relative lack of water on land affect
how plants evolved?
The Plant Life Cycle
All plants have life cycles with alternating phases. This means that they have a haploid phase and a diploid phase.
The diploid phase is called the sporophyte. The haploid phase is called the gametophyte.
Follow the directions.
1. Use red to color the arrows that show haploid stages.
2. Use blue to color the arrows that show diploid stages.
3. Label the sporophyte plant stages of the life cycle.
4. Label the gametophyte plant stages of the life cycle.
Spore
Sperm
Eggs
5. Which of the following produces spores?
sporophyte plant
gametophyte plant
6. Which best describes eggs and sperm?
haploid
diploid
7. In the sentence, “An important trend in plant evolution is the increasing size of sporophytes and the
decreasing size of gametophyte,” what does the word trend mean?
A. system
C. test
B. sequence
D. tendency