How Flowers Changed the World!

How Flowers Changed the World! Class Readings How Flowers Changed the World by Loren Eisley (excerpted from The Earth Speaks, Institute for Earth Education, 1983). Important Milestones in Plant Evolution Flower Anatomy & Leaf Anatomy Ferns of Bouverie Preserve (Wirka, 2006) Fern ID by Frond Anatomy (Pacific Coast Fern Finder, Glenn Keator & Ruth Heady, 1982) Branching Out ‐ Study: Liverworts First to Leave the Sea (Rick Callahan, Associated Press) Liverwort & Hornwort Diversity in the Sonoma Valley (Susan Tremblay, 2006) Common Mosses of California Pollinator Derby (Wirka, 2007) Key Concepts By the end of this class, we hope you will be able to: Feel excited about how flowers literally “changed the world” and pass that enthusiasm on to young learners, Reinforce what 3rd and 4th graders have already learned about flowers and know a few strategies to help them discover flowers using their senses of smell, touch, and sight, Distinguish between flowering and non‐flowering plants and between seeds and spores, Understand a bit about non‐vascular plants (bryophytes) including mosses and liverworts, their life cycles and evolution, Show learners where to find spore sacs on a typical fern and blow their minds by how many spores are in there, Understand some of the ways that plants achieve pollination and point out some of the unique features of flowers that are used to attract pollinators, and Distinguish between the 3 conifers that live at Bouverie Preserve and understand why their cones are not ALL called pine cones. Resources ONLINE Check out the Guide to Wildflowers of Bouverie Preserve on iNaturalist at www.inaturalist.org/guides/1718 AND the Guide to Ferns & Fern Allies of Bouverie Preserve at www.inaturalist.org/guides/2116 The CalFlora database includes photos, descriptions, and location information for all wild California plant species at www.calflora.org. You will need to register and set up an account to use the site, but it’s free. Reny’s Wildflowers, A Closer Look by Reny Parker. A fantastic resource with a searchable database of more than 4100 photographic images of plants from 112 plant families. Searchable by scientific and common plant name, color, shape, and photo location. http://www.renyswildflowers.com/ Wayne’s Word is an on‐line textbook of biology and botany with technical but accessible information about plants, basic biology, ecology, taxidermy, adaptations, and lots of fun facts about seed plants www.waynesword.palomar.edu. The California Native Plant Society website is the quintessential California plant resource with a searchable list of 6,984 plants, information about native plant cultivation, rare plants, field trips, education and training www.cnps.org. Trail Tips RECOMMENDED READING & REFERENCES Plants in general and flowers Any reasonably current botany or biology textbook will teach you the especially offer a huge range basics of seed plants. We recommend Biology of Plants by Peter Raven, of opportunities to engage Ray F. Evert & Susan E. Eichhorn, (W.H. Freeman, 6th ed. 1999). young learners who may have Botany Coloring Book by Paul Young & Jacquelyn Giuffre (Harper very different learning styles. Perennial, 1st edition, 1982). Try a few of these ideas: nd *Have each child pick a color Botany Illustrated by Janice Glimn‐Lacy (Springer, 2 edition, 2006). and then be responsible for Botany in a Day by Thomas Elpel. (HOPS Press, 2010 edition). A pattern‐ finding as many flowers as based method of plant identification. they can of that color. Ferns and Fern Allies of California (California Natural History Guides) by *Don’t worry about what Stephen Grillos & Rita Whitmore (University of California Press, 1966). flowers are called—rather, let students name them. Make a Field Guide to Pacific States Wildflowers by Theodore Niehaus and Charles list of all the names they come Ripper (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2nd edition, 1998). A field guide that up with and review them at combines family characteristics, color, and easy to follow icons. A the end of the hike, “Who standard, but scientific names are out of date. remembers what ‘Fairies In Praise of Plants by Francis Halle and David Lee (Timber Press, 2011) Lace’ looks like.” combines plant science with opinions to create a view of the world that is *The next time you are at a plant‐centric as opposed to animal‐centric. hardware store, pick up a few paint sample cards in varying Insects and Flowers: The Biology of a Partnership by Friedrich Barth colors. Give each child a (Princeton University Press, 1985). A technical and fascinating discussion different color and see how of the relationship of insects and flowers from a pollination ecologists’ many matches they can find. perspective. Great photos of insect and flower anatomy. This can even be fun with just Introduction to Trees of the San Francisco Bay Region by Glenn Keator shades of green! (University of California Press, 2003). *Stop and smell the roses, Pacific Coast Fern Finder by Glenn Keator and Ruth Heady (Nature Study and lupines, buttercups, and Guild Publishers, 1981). sages. Ask young learners what the smell reminds them Pacific Coast Tree Finder by Tom Watts (Nature Study Guild Publishers, of and why they think flowers 2004) is one of those back‐pocket field guides that you will take with you smell the way they do. everywhere. *Use the Pollinator Derby The Jepson Manual: Vascular Plants of California by Bruce Baldwin et. al., cards to hunt for pollinators (University of California Press, 2012) is the current bible of botany in and talk about different ways California. Not for the botanically‐phobic as it is organized by plant family flowers attract them. and there are no color pictures! Taxonomic descriptions in Jepson are *Have students count the linked with the CalFlora website, which does have pictures (see websites, number of “sori” (piles of above). spore sacs) on a single leaflet of a fern. Then tell them there Trees and Shrubs of California by John Stuart & John Sawyer (University of are thousands of spores in California Press, 2001). each sorus. See if they can Wildflowers of California’s North Coast Range by Reny Parker (New Creek estimate how many spores Ranch Press, 2015). A photographic guide to Marin, Sonoma, Napa and are made by a single fern! Mendocino that is about as specific to Bouverie Preserve as you can get. See also Reny’s website, above. How Flowers Changed the World Loren Eiseley “HOW FLOWERS CHANGED THE WORLD” If it had been possible to observe the Earth from the far side of the solar system over the long course of geological epochs, the watchers might have been able to discern a subtle change in the light emanating from our planet. That world of long ago would, like the red deserts of Mars, have reflected light from vast drifts of stone and gravel, the sands of wandering wastes, the blackness of naked basalt, the yellow dust of endlessly moving storms. Only the ceaseless marching of the clouds and the intermittent flashes from the restless surface of the sea would have told a different story, but still essentially a barren one. Then, as the millennia rolled away and age followed age, a new and greener light would, by degrees, have come to twinkle across those endless miles. This is the only difference those far watchers, by the use of subtle instruments, might have perceived in the whole history of the planet Earth. Yet that slowly growing green twinkle would have contained the epic march of life from the tidal oozes upward across the raw and unclothed continents. Out of the vast chemical bath of the sea—not from the deeps, but from the element-rich, light-exposed platforms of the continental shelves—wandering fingers of green had crept upward along the meanderings of river systems and fringed the gravels of forgotten lakes. In those first ages plants clung of necessity to swamps and watercourses. Their reproductive processes demanded direct access to water. Beyond the primitive ferns and mosses that enclosed the borders of swamps and streams the rocks still lay vast and bare, the winds still swirled the dust of a naked planet. The grass cover that holds our world secure in place was still millions of years in the future. The green marchers had gained a soggy foothold upon the land, but that was all. They did not reproduce by seeds but by microscopic swimming sperm that had to wriggle their way through water to fertilize the female cell. Such plants in their higher forms had clever adaptations for the use of rain water in their sexual phases, and survived with increasing success in a wetland environment. They now seem part of man’s normal environment. The truth is, however, that there is nothing very “normal” about nature, Once upon a time there were no flowers at all. A little while ago—about one hundred million years, as the geologist estimates time in the history of our four-billion-year-old planet—flowers were not to be found anywhere on the five continents. Wherever one might have looked, from the poles to the equator, one would have seen only the cold dark monotonous green of a world whose plant life possessed no other color. Somewhere, just a short time before the close of the Age of Reptiles, there occurred a soundless, violent explosion. It lasted millions of years, but it was an explosion, nevertheless. It marked the emergence of the angiosperms—the flowering plants, Even The Earth Speaks 1 of 8 How Flowers Changed the World Loren Eiseley the great evolutionist, Charles Darwin, called them “an abominable mystery,” because they appeared so suddenly and spread so fast. Flowers changed the face of the planet.

Load more