Biology

Plant Biology and Classification

1,473 Questions

Plant Biology and Classification deals with the taxonomy, evolution, and morphological features of the plant kingdom. This collection offers practice questions on plant groups, taxonomic hierarchies, and specific plant characteristics. The questions are tailored for students preparing for biology competitive exams.

Plant taxonomyPteridophytesAngiospermsPlant morphologyAlgae and bryophytesClassification systems

Plant Biology and Classification Questions

Multiple choice

Which of the following ferns is most commonly associated with stomach cancer in Japan?

  1. Rumohra adiantiformis

  2. Pteridium aquilinum

  3. Microsorum pteropus

  4. Osmunda regalis

  5. Matteuccia struthiopteris
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
B Correct answer
Explanation

Its fiddleheads are used as a cooked vegetable in Japan and are believed to be responsible for the high rate of stomach cancer in Japan. It is also one of the world's most important agricultural weeds, especially in the British highlands, and often poisons cattle and horses.

Multiple choice

Non-vascular plants belong to the division Bryophyta, which includes mosses, liverworts and hornworts. Which of the following can be excluded from the main adaptations of non-vascular plants?

  1. The non-vascular plants usually grow in dry places.

  2. These plants possess rhizoids.

  3. The sporophyte grows as a parasite on the gametophyte.

  4. The rate of evaporation is slow.

  5. They reproduce asexually and sexually.
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
A Correct answer
Explanation

The non-vascular plants usually grow in moist and shady places. The moist environment is essential for easy uptake of the water since they lack the vascular tissues like the xylem and the phloem.

Multiple choice

All Utricularia are carnivorous and capture small organisms by means of bladder-like traps. Which among the following bryophytes is often compared with Utricularia?

  1. Ptilidium ciliare

  2. Folioceros

  3. Colura zoophaga

  4. Diphyscium

  5. Discelium
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
C Correct answer
Explanation

Colura zoophaga is a small epiphytic liverwort . It possesses elongated water sacs formed by the fusion of the upper leaf margin rolling inward down to the rest of the leaf. A funnel-shaped channel at the lower leaf margin leads to a small opening into the water sac and is covered by a movable lid that only open inward.It is because of this bladder-like configuration that these traps have been compared to those of Utricularia.

Multiple choice

Which of the following lichens is composed of overlapping scales?

  1. Leprose

  2. Squamulose

  3. Fruticose

  4. Foliose

  5. Crustose
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
B Correct answer
Explanation

A squamulose lichen is a lichen that is composed usually overlapping scales called squamules. If they appear raise from the substrate and appear leafy, the lichen may appear to be a foliose lichen, but the underside does not have a skin (cortex), as foliose lichens do.

Multiple choice

Which among the following is a red coloured alga characterised by the branches similar to the teeth of a comb?

  1. Nori

  2. Rhodolith

  3. Plocamium

  4. Claudea

  5. Coralline algae
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
C Correct answer
Explanation

Plocamium pacificum is a beautiful red alga that can be found in both intertidal and subtidal salt water habitats. It is dark red in color and has an elastic, rubbery feel to it. Its height can range from 4-25 cm. The branches are arranged to form a dense and delicate framework. All of the branches come off of the main axes in an alternate pattern. The branchlets are small and are arranged on the branches like the teeth of a comb.

Multiple choice

Spirogyra, chara, ulothrix and cladophora are some of the most prominent thallophytes. Which among the following statements concerning the thallophytes is false?

  1. All the thallophytes produce chlorophyll.

  2. The second subphylum of the thallophytes is called heterophytic thallophytes.

  3. The final class of thallophyta is fungi.

  4. The simplest thallophytes include sulphur-containing bacteria.

  5. The geological record of thallophytes is incomplete.
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
D Correct answer
Explanation

The thallophytes are in the most primitive plants, lacking roots, stems, leaves, and conducting cells. The simplest thallophytes are in the subphylum of autophytic thallophytes, which include blue-green bacteria (or cyanobacteria, formerly known as blue-green algae), diatoms, and algae.

Multiple choice

Which among the following is not a characteristic of the family plocamiaceae of the algae?

  1. Within the thallus, there is a single, axially located, longitudinal filament called a uniaxial.

  2. The tetrasporangia (the reproductive structures) are zonately divided.

  3. All of the branches are singly arranged at consistent intervals on the main axis.

  4. The thalli of Plocamiaceae algae are directed upward and the fronds are flattened.

  5. The main thallus has a sympodial form.
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
A Correct answer
Explanation

Within the thallus there is a single, centrally located, longitudinal filament called a uniaxial. This filament is the chain of apical cells and is therefore the site of main algal growth. The apical cells are larger than the other cells and can be distinguished with a microscope.

Multiple choice

Ferns grow in many different habitats around the world. Which among the following ferns is commonly known as mountain kiokio?

  1. Blechnum procerum

  2. Asplenium polyodon

  3. Asplenium listeri

  4. Adiantum tenerum

  5. Angiopteris evecta
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
A Correct answer
Explanation

Blechnum procerum, commonly known as mountain kiokio or small kiokio, is a species of fern found in New Zealand. Mountain kiokio is found from lowland to alpine areas amongst forest, scrub and tussock.

Multiple choice

Which among the following plants appears to resurrect from the dead and thus, is commonly known as resurrection fern?

  1. Corpse lily

  2. Selaginella lepidophylla

  3. Living rock

  4. Venus fly trap

  5. Ball moss
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
B Correct answer
Explanation

Also called resurrection fern this autotroph is interesting in that it appears to resurrect from the dead. It lives in very dry climates and when there is a lack of water, it shrivels up into a grey ball and can stay like this for a number of years. When it finally rains, the resurrection fern grows and turns green.

Multiple choice

Which of the following statements does not characterise ferns?

  1. The gametophyte of ferns is a free-living organism.

  2. Ferns are vascular plants, similar to lycophytes.

  3. They have a life cycle referred to as alternation of generations.

  4. Ferns are grown to remove some chemical pollutants from the air.

  5. Ferns first appeared in the fossil record 360 million years ago in the late Devonian period.
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
B Correct answer
Explanation

Ferns are vascular plants differing from lycophytes by having true leaves (megaphylls), which are often pinnate. They differ from seed plants (gymnosperms and angiosperms) in their mode of reproduction lacking flowers and seeds.

Multiple choice

Which among the following ferns is popularly known as Snow Brook-moss?

  1. Hygrohypnum styriacum

  2. Funaria hygrometrica

  3. Fontinalis

  4. Flatbergium sericeum

  5. Flabellidium spinosum
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
A Correct answer
Explanation

Hygrohypnum styriacum, commonly known as Snow Brook-moss or Hygrohypnum Moss, is a species of moss found in the Northern Hemisphere. It is present in Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Poland, Slovakia, Sweden, Scotland and Spain.