Plantaginaceae

Lab dissection

Plate: drawing and observations

Notes

• 210 genera, mostly herbs or small shrubs.

• Various methods of obtaining nutrition:

_ Self-feeding (autotrophic)

_ Partial dependence on another plant (hemiparasitic)

_ Total dependence (holoparasitic)

   _ Dependence on dead or decaying organic matter (saprophytic)

• The leaves are alternante on round or square stems.

• Flower types are bisexual

• Bracts below flowers are usually present

• Flower sepals are usually joined and have 4-5 lobes.

• Joined petals form a tube that may have 2 lips (bilabiate)

• Sometimes there are 5 staments, but usually, they are 4 in 2 pairs of 2 different lengths (didynamous), with, usually, the fifth stamen reduced to a sterile structure or a scale.

Sources

• Botanique, systématique moléculaire, Guignard and Dupont (2005)

• The Science behind Flowers, Dick Rauh (2020).

• Botany Illustrated. Introduction to Plants, Major Groups, Flowering Plant Families, by Janice Glimn-Lacy and Peter B. Kaufman (2006).

• English wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antirrhinum

• Susannah Graedel's plate.