Group 1 - 111 Tuesday 2:35pm – TA: Wing's Boletim

By taking into consideration all of my observations the species that caught most of my attention was the Burdocks. Once I located the Burdock into the phylogenetic tree, I learned that its scientific name is Arctium, which contains 83 species. They are active in Europe and Asia but have been successfully spread worldwide.

When I was walking through the park I unintentionally passed through a plant and all of a sudden several burdocks had grabbed on my pants. This leads me to the conclusion of a common adaptation in burdocks, their prickly heads. Species such as burdocks tend to have these sort of spines to form a globular shell to protect the seeds at the interior of the flower head.

One adaptation that I noticed from most of the plants that were observed is that most of them don’t have defense mechanisms. Meaning that they all grow in numerous quantities, probably because of their extensive roots. Plants have consistent growth and this is why they don’t adapt into a defense mechanism against the herbivores.

I have chosen the chickory, or the Cichorium intybus as my journal entry. Its placement in the phylogenetic tree is in the family of Asteraceae and more specifically in the family of the Cichorioideae. The latter is a sub-family of the Asteraceae.
One unique adaptation of this plant is the bright blue petals.
One common adaptation found amongst my observations is that most of these are weeds, that are invasive and hard to get rid of. They have seeds that have a specific type of structure to ensure they are easily dispersed, either by air or through animal feces, for example.