Diario de amyavakian

There are so many different plant families. I have over 40 different families documented although they mostly fall under the same Phylum. I only have around 8 different plant phylums. I decided to narrow in on this pattern, and discuss why there are so many different plant families. In contrast, there aren't as many animal families but there are generally a lot of animal phyla. My hypothesis as to why there as so many plant families is because plants are easily pollinated and spread around different environments, and plants need to change in order to adapt to their new environments. Plants change and adapt in order to create better modes of seed dispersal, pollination, and adapt to different habitats. Plants have to adapt or become extinct. This hypothesis can be tested if you research the many different types of plants that have uniquely evolved in starkly differing habitats. It is very easy to also see that plants originate from different regions but still may end up in the same region; documenting plants shows how many unique plant families there really are.

I have decided to further specify the Phylum Magnoliophyta by grouping it based on families. I have 40 families under Phylum Magnoliophyta. I have noticed for my recent observations towards the middle of my list, that I am starting to find very interesting flowering plants. This could be because we are traveling with my class under the Pasadena bridge. It could also be because I am keeping my eyes open to spot plants I haven't already taken a picture of. The plants I have recently logged are mainly found in California according to the map. Again, I feel that I've found plants that don't require a great amount of water to survive.

For my second set of around 10-15 observations I found mostly trees in the Arroyo Seco Trail. I found Maple trees, Mugwort, Armenian Blackberry, Alder, Oak, Conifers, Croton, and California Bay. I think being in a lush, natural, forest setting with a lot of different trees and plants is why I was finding mostly trees. I'm still not sure how I'm going to take the general category of Magnoliophyta and put my specialty in a more specific category since I have many different types of Magnoliophyta. The leaves I found in these trees are wide and flat. I might categorize it based on Tracheophyta subkingdom or based on most concentrated area the species is found.

I noticed that the first 10 observations I made for Phylum Magnoliophyta, or flowering plants, were not actually flowering. Buckwheat fell under the Magnoliophyta category. I found interesting plants such as legumes, Cenizo, sea lavenders, and ferns. Most of these first observations were found in nature near Glendale, Ca. I found it interesting that these plants were less finicky; they could sustain in the heat and survive without water for a while. For example, the buckwheat and the round-leafed navel-wort have probably not been watered since the last time it had rained but they looked reasonably healthy. These plants were found in the same geographic location, or at least by a couple of blocks. I can assume that the heat of summer prevented these plants from being totally healthy or blooming. Perhaps these plants retain water during hot times. I do have a couple of cactus-like flowers like the Aeonium or the navel-wort.