Chapter 4 Study Guide
Leaves – organs made of cells and tissue
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Epidermis – Helps protect the plant. Outside layer of flat cells.
Spongy Tissue – looks like a sponge. Air can pass through.
Vessel Tissue – carry food and water through the plant to all other plant parts.
Leaf opening (Pore) – Allows air to pass through
Photosynthesis - The process that plants and some other organisms use to make sugar for food. Takes place in the
chloroplast of plant cells.
Carbon dioxide + Water + Sunlight energy  Oxygen + Sugar
Flowers – organs made of tissues of similar cells. Flowers are responsible for plants’ reproduction
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Egg Cells – Found in the bottom of the pistil
Petals – Often the most colorful Tissues of a flower
Anthers – Tissue at the top of the stamen where pollen is made
Pistil – Female part of the flower. Often has a bottle shape, with a wide bottom and a narrow neck.
Stigma – Tissues at the top of the pistil
Sepals – Cover the flower when it is just a bud
Stamen – male part of the flower. Pollen is made in a tissue at the top of each stamen.
Plant reproduction – Make new plants that usually look like their parents
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Sexual reproduction – the passing of DNA from two parents to their offspring. Half the DNA is contained in the
sperm cell and the other half is in the egg cell. The offspring will share the traits of both parents. In plants,
flowers are the organs where sexual reproduction takes place.
Asexual Reproduction – reproduce without sperm cells or egg cells. In asexual reproduction, there is only one
parent. Since all genetic material comes from one parent, the offspring will normally have the same genes as the
parent.
Pollination – Moving pollen from the stamen to the pistil
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Pollen is moved through wind, water, insects, bats, birds, etc. to the pistil
A tube grows from the pollen down to the egg cells in the bottom of the pistil
Sperm cells travel down the tube and join the egg cells (called fertilization)
The fertilized egg will grow and divide many times and change – the result is a seed
Seed – Three main parts
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Seed coat – protects the embryo and endosperm
Embryo – the new plant within the seed. An embryo has structures called seed leaves or cotyledons.
Endosperm - stored food within the seed
Dicot vs. Monocot Seed
Seed
Monocot
One area of stored food
Ex: corn
Leaf
Root
Veins in leaf are parallel
Fibrous root systems
Dicot
Two areas of stored food that are easily split
apart
Ex: bean
Veins in leaf branch out
Taproot systems (one large root)
Spore – a single plant cell that can develop into a new plant.
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Like seeds – have stored food, some protected by a protective wall, some can wait a long time for the right
conditions before they start to grow
Different from seeds – spores do not have multicellular embryos like seeds, spores are not made by fertilization
like seeds
Tropism – are ways that plants change their direction of growth in response to their environment
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Gravitropism – response because of the pull of gravity
Phototropism – plant’s reaction to a source of light
Thigmotropism – plant’s growth in response to touching an object