LEAF FUNCTIONS
The chemical process by which plants produce food.
What is photosynthesis?
What is another name for the tip of the leaf?
What is the Apex?
What is another word for color?
Pigment
What is the main reason leaves change color in the fall?
Low sunlight.
What is the function of leaves on a tree?
To make food (sugar) for the tree using sunlight, chlorophyll and water.
The pigment or coloring that makes plants green.
What is chlorophyll?
What is the name for the edge of the leaf?
A margin.
What is the color that all leaves eventually turn?
Brown
What would happen if deciduous trees did not lose their leaves in the fall?
The leaves would use up all the water needed to maintain the roots during the winter.
What brings water and nutrients to the leaves?
Veins
What product does photosynthesis make that plants use as energy?
Sugar
Name the 3 parts of a leaf.
Stem, midrib and veins.
What is the color that leaves are during the spring and summer because of chlorophyll?
Shades of green.
What happens when leaves stay on the ground?
The leaves decompose and put nutrients back into the soil that the tree can absorb through its root system.
Spread outward from the stem and across the leaf like pipes serving both to transport liquid and to reinforce the structure of the leaf?
What are the veins?
Where do the nutrients from photosynthesis go?
To the roots and branches.
What is the flat part of the leaf called?
The blade.
What affects the intensity of leaf color?
Temperature.
What types of trees are pines, spruces, cedars and firs - that do not lose their leaves?
Evergreen Trees.
What is the stem also called?
What is the petiole?
Without this, trees would not be able to use sunlight to produce food.
What is chlorophyll?
Runs straight up the middle of the leaf.
What is a midrib?
Can you use fall leaf color to help identify different tree species?
Yes.
What is always present in leaves and the amount does not change in response to weather?
Carotenoid - yellow, gold and orange colors and remain fairly constant from year to year.
Plants with specialized leaves that collect and store water.
What are succulents?