Field of Science

New Botanical ID Quiz

It has been far too long since we had a botanical identification quiz, although having a couple of sharpies among your readers has greatly cut down on the number of guesses on previous quizes, which have averaged about 1! The solution to the problem is obvious; make the quiz a lot harder, and here is an admission, the Phactor got this one wrong in response to a student query during a field trip to a botanical garden, but my students were impressed anyways. Explanation will follow later. This quiz features the most ornamental and striking feature of this plant, the exfoliating bark, and we'll see how you do.

4 comments:

Laura Bloomsbury said...

Well it's not a shag bark hickory and the clue is in the bigger picture! - Chinese quince

Laura

The Phytophactor said...

Apparently there is no stumping my regular readers! Chinese quince (Pseudocydonia sinensis) it is! But my students were impressed that the Phactor had guessed it was Cydonia. But if this wasn't hard enough, this really ups the ante in terms of how difficult the next quiz will be! And it will all be Laura's fault.

Pat said...

So, here is a picture of a chloroplast, from what species does it come?

If I had seen this in time I would have given you a wild and wrong guess.

The Phytophactor said...

Oh, that's good, just a chloroplast! Sounds like a good lab exam ID too!