Tag: diversity in plants

For the canopy to spread over a large area the root system also has to be robust so as to provide enough nutrients and anchorage. Wide spreading and deep roots are tap root systems that are characteristic to dicotyledonous plants.

A parasite depends on its host to stay alive. Killing the host before the reproduction destroys parasite also as it needs host to produce its progeny generation after generation. This makes option D correct. In order to keep the host alive to produce many generations of parasite offspring, it is necessary for a parasite to become less virulent or gentle over many generations. This makes option A incorrect. Fast reproduction produces increase the number of parasite offspring but poses extra burden on host and makes the host survival harder. This makes option B incorrect. Similarly, sticking too long to a host decreases its survival chances and hence, parasite keeps switching the host over time. Option C is incorrect. Thus, the correct answer is option D.

Cuscuta (Dodder) plant is an obligate or total stem parasite. It lacks chlorophyll and has no connection with the soil after the seeding stage. Therefore it is totally dependent on the host for organic food materials and supply of water and minerals salts. The parasitic plant pierces the stem and sucks the nutrients from the host plant.

The Venus flower basket, or Euplectella aspergillum is a hexactinellid sponge in the phylum Porifera inhabiting the deep ocean. In traditional Asian cultures, this particular sponge (in a dead, dry state) was given as a wedding gift because the sponge symbiotically houses two small shrimp, a male and a female, who live out their lives inside the sponge. They breed, and when their offspring are tiny, the offspring escape to find a Venus flower basket of their own. The shrimp inside the basket clean it and, in return, the basket provides food for the shrimp by trapping it in its tissues and then releasing wastes into the body of the sponge for the shrimp. It is also speculated that the bioluminescent light of bacteria harnessed by the sponge may attract other small organisms which the shrimp eat. 

Rafflesia is a genus of parasitic flowering plants. It contains approximately 28 species, all found in southeastern Asia, in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines. It is not a saprophytic angiosperm. Cuscuta, Loranthus and santalum are stem parasites. Nepenthes, Drosera and Dionaea are the insectivorous plants. Mangrove plants are seen in saline marshy lands. 

• Trypsin is working as a digestive enzyme to break down proteins in the small intestine.
• Some plants eat insects. Such plants are called insectivorous plants. They trap and digest insects. The insect is then digested by the enzyme pepsin secreted by the cells of the plants. Example -The protease secreted in the pitcher fluid is pepsin-like.
• Pectinase is the enzyme that breaks down pectin and polysaccharides found in plant cell walls.
• Cellulase is the enzyme that converts cellulose into glucose or a disaccharide.

So option B is correct.

Aldrovanda is an insectivorous plant as it feeds on insects. Aldrovanda vesiculosa, commonly known as the waterwheel plant, captures small aquatic invertebrates using traps similar to those of the Venus flytrap. The traps are arranged in whorls around a central, free-floating stem.