Botany

I’ve accidentally written two questions months apart to try and understand one answer. I was tempted to bin one, but then decided it could serve as a good reminder of how things can be spun differently. And maybe I’ll even remember the answer!

Questions

Known by the names girlfriend kiss and labios de puta, those both coming from its bright red leaves that look like lips, ‘Palicourea elata’ is a Latin American species found in which flowering plant family that also contains the genera ‘Coffea’ and ‘Cinchona’?

RUBIACEAE

Official flower of the city of Shanghai, the Yulan is also known as the lilytree. In which genus can it be found, this being mentioned in the Abel Meeropol poem “Strange Fruit”?

MAGNOLIA

Fermentation is a form of what two-word process that occurs in certain organisms such as yeasts? An example is alcoholic fermentation where pyruvate, the end product of glycolysis, is converted into ethanol and carbon dioxide.

ANAEROBIC RESPIRATION

Also found in parasitic fungi, what is the name of the structure that allows mistletoe to attach to its host and absorb nutrients?

HAUSTORIUM

Commonly known as dodder, which parasitic plant has been given names like strangleweed, wizard’s net and witch’s hair that give a flavour of how it wraps itself around its host? Using haustoria to extract nutrients from suitable plants, it has been used in traditional Chinese medicine.

CUSCUTA

Vacuoles found in plant cells are surrounded by a membrane that is known by what word, the first part of it being taken from a Greek term meaning ‘stretched’ or ‘strained’?

TONOPLAST

Naturally occurring auxins such as IAA are synthesized in actively growing regions of the plant. A derivative of an organic compound made up of a benzene ring fused to a pyrrole ring, for what does IAA stand for, usually having a 3 inserted between the I and first A?

INDOLEACETIC ACID / INDOLE-3-ACETIC ACID

The synthetic auxins indolebutyric acid and naphthaleneacetic acid are sold in preparations of what type of hormones? An example of a gardening product that uses these in liquid form is Dip ‘N Grow.

ROOTING HORMONES

A term coming from Greek words that mean ‘tension’ and ‘formed’, what name is given to the membrane of vacuoles that can be found in plant cells?

TONOPLAST

Sharing the name of a barn owl from the “Guardians of Ga’Hoole”, which rose with bright pink petals was sung about in “Bedknobs and Broomsticks” and mentioned in Keats’ “Ode to a Nightingale”?

EGLANTINE

Tonka beans

Just five questions here, but there’s only so much I want to write about this vanilla substitute.

Questions

Also known as the Brazilian Teak, what is the common name of the tree ‘Dipteryx odorata’, the species from which tonka beans can be harvested?

CUMARU

One of its trade names being Coumadin, a name that ultimately derives from the tree that gives us the tonka bean, which anticoagulant has been used as a rat poison, with it allegedly being a contributor to the death of Joseph Stalin?

WARFARIN

The cumaru is a member of a large plant family with what Latin name, with other interesting plants under this umbrella including ‘Glycyrrhiza glabra’, better known as liquorice?

FABACEAE (Pea family)

Able to be measured in pounds-force or newtons, which hardness test for the suitability of a type of wood for use as flooring gets its name from an Austrian-born American researcher?

JANKA (Gabriel Janka)

A word deriving from the Latin for ‘flees from chalk’, what term can be used to describe a plant that doesn’t tolerate alkaline soil, with the tonka bean giving cumaru one such example?

CALCIFUGE

Botany

I’ve been pining to improve by knowledge of trees for some time.

Questions

What general term is used for a fruit (seed capsule) of two fused carpels where the length is more than three times the width? They are typical of the brassicaceae family.

SILIQUE (When the length is less than three times the width it is a silicle, with honesty having disc shaped ones)

What term coming from the Latin for a cluster of grapes, refers to the unbranched mass of flowers that grow on short floral stalks called pedicels? They are featured in honesty.

RACEME

What does the vascular tissue phloem, coined by Carl Nägeli from the Greek for ‘bark’, transport?

SAP / SOLUBLE ORGANIC COMPOUNDS (SUGARS)

Found in plants as a hormone that helps fruits to ripen, what is the chemical formula for ethylene or ethene, the simplest alkene?

C2H4

Banned in numerous countries because of its link to an increased risk in cancer, what was the brand name of glyphosate when it was brought to market by Monsanto in 1974?

ROUNDUP

‘Rudbeckia hirta’, commonly called black-eyed Susan, is in which family that is also known as Compositae, containing the well known daisies and sunflowers?

ASTERACEAE / ASTERS

The ‘hirta’ part of black-eyed Susan’s latin name ‘Rudbeckia hirta’ means what in Latin, with the ‘Rudbeckia’ part being named by Carl Linnaeus for a patron of his?

HAIRY

Consisting of undifferentiated cells that are capable of cell division, the meristem is a type of what found in plants?

TISSUE

Chloroplasts and chromoplasts are undifferentiated in the meristem but present in what rudimentary form that develops into an organelle often concerned with photosynthesis?

PROPLASTIDS

Containing the nucleus and the cytoplasm, what living part of the cell fills the meristem completely?

PROTOPLASM

Their function being to help the plant increase its length, which type of meristematic tissues are located in the middle of the plant, rather than the apical tissue at the tips or the meristematic tissues at the sides?

INTERCALARY OR BASAL

Responsible for increasing the width of a plant, what type of meristematic tissues are present at the sides?

LATERAL

A term found in Terraforming, with what kind of astronomical body could the hypothetical Dyson Tree grow with a view to tapping into its water source?

COMET

Although the term tepals can be used when a part of it is not easy to classify, what two parts of a flower does the perianth generally consist of?

CALYX / SEPALS (The green part) AND COROLLA / PETALS (The colourful part)

The top part of the pistil above the style and the ovary, which part of the female plant organs receives the pollen?

STIGMA

What is the alternative common name for the Coulter Pine, a reference to its super large seed-bearing organ, with people working in such groves advised to wear hard hats in case one of these ‘widowmakers’ lands on their head?

BIG CONE PINE

Although the Coulter pine has the largest cone among trees in the ‘Pinus’ genus, it is defeated by Australia’s bunya-bunya tree in the conifer leaderboard. Found in the genus ‘Araucaria’, this tree is sometimes known as the false what?

FALSE MONKEY PUZZLE TREE

Getting its name from David Douglas in reference to its bulk, what is the most widely distributed pine species in North America, recognised by Montana as its state tree? The Coulter pine can be found in the same subsection.

PONDEROSA PINE

‘Pinus’ is such a vast genus that you don’t just get subgenus, but also section and subsection before you get to the species. To what section do most American hard pines belong, its name seemingly a misnomer as each cluster of leaves has two to five needles, and sometimes even eight?

TRIFOLIAE

Along with ‘Pinus’ for the hard pines, the genus ‘Pinus’ is divided into two subgenuses. What is the ‘whirling’ name given to the soft pines, with bristlecone pines and pinyons being two of the numerous examples that fall into this category?

STROBUS