Year 7 Science · Unit 1 · Lesson 04

Plant Classification

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Learning Goals

Read the graph

Study the bar chart below, then answer the three questions.

Approximate number of known species in each plant group

0 75,000 150,000 225,000 300,000 Number of known species ~20,000 Mosses ~12,000 Ferns ~1,000 Gymnosperms ~300,000 Angiosperms

Data: Chapman, A.D. (2009) Numbers of Living Species in Australia and the World, Australian Biodiversity Information Services.

(a) Which plant group has the greatest number of known species?

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(b) Estimate how many times more angiosperm species there are compared to gymnosperm species. Show your working.

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(c) Using what you know about flowers and fruit, explain why angiosperms are so much more species-rich than gymnosperms. (Hint: think about pollinators and seed dispersal.)

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Compare two

Complete the table to compare Gymnosperms and Angiosperms. Use your lesson notes to fill in as many cells as you can.

FeatureGymnospermsAngiosperms
How seeds are held
How pollen is spread
Leaf type in many species
Examples from Australia
Economic uses

1. A botanist finds a plant with cones but no flowers. Which plant group does it belong to? Give two other features you would expect this plant to have.

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2. A grassland has grasses (monocots) and wattles (dicots). Describe one feature you could use to tell them apart, and explain why that feature is reliable.

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Wrap Up

In one sentence, what was the main idea of this lesson?