Budding botany fun September 24 2020, 0 Comments

Many times, children see plants presented as static objects rather than dynamic, interesting living things. I have a new card set that can help you bring more liveliness and fun to botany. It is called “What Flower Is Growing Here?” The set has close-up photos of buds and on a second card, the flowers that unfold from them. Children look at a bud and see if they can match it to the flower in bloom. There are 16 different species of plants featured, and their study can stimulate bud observations in both spring and fall. You can see the set here. https://big-picture-science.myshopify.com/collections/montessori-botany-materials/products/what-flower-is-growing-here .

There is a sentence or two on the flower card that helps children understand more about the flower. For more advanced children, there is a text card for each plant that gives its classification, more details of its development, and its origin.

Annuals and herbaceous perennials grow most rapidly in spring and summer. They produce their buds and blooms from spring to late summer. Most of them have finished their activities in autumn. Herbaceous plants that are pictured in the “What Flower Is Growing Here?” set include petunias, pansies, poppies, and peonies. Zinnias, hollyhocks, nasturtiums, lilies, and columbines, along with daffodils, daylilies, and the bearded iris, round out the spring and summer bloomers that die back in winter.

In autumn, there are structures to observe in another group of plants, the shrubs and trees. Several woody plants form conspicuous flower buds by autumn and hold them over the winter before they bloom in spring. All of them form leaf buds, and many form flower buds that are hidden in the leaf buds. The woody plants in “What Flower Is Growing Here?” are the rhododendron, flowering dogwood, and star magnolia. All three of these form their flower buds in the late summer or early autumn.  They have flower buds that children can easily see all winter long. Other woody plants that form visible flower buds in autumn include alders (shown below), birches, forsythias, and the silktassel (Garrya).

Considering these two categories of plants, there is some flower bud to be seen almost year round. After children have worked with the “What Flower is Growing Here?” cards, they are primed to find buds on nearby plants. They can even look at weeds with a hand lens and may be able to find tiny flower buds there. Following buds through their development is an important activity that helps children see plants as alive and dynamic.

When children see the buds during the winter, they will be primed to observe the big changes that come in spring. If they keep a watch on annuals and perennials in the spring, they may spot the buds well before bloom time. It is exciting and amazing to see what a large flower emerges from some small buds.

The same sort of excitement can come in spring when the leaf buds start to open. Woody plants form their leaf buds in the previous summer or autumn, and most are covered by bud scales. Giving children an opportunity to observe next year’s leaf buds will prepare them to appreciate the swelling bud scales and leaf emergence in the spring.

Enjoy watching your plants bring forth their buds and flowers.

See the blooming trees! April 09 2018, 0 Comments

Many people are surprised to learn that broadleaf trees are flowering plants. It is true that most of them do not have the showy blossoms that people associate with the word “flower.” Members of the rose and magnolia families aren’t subtle with their flowers. Any sighted person can tell they are blooming. 

Other kinds of trees may have quite inconspicuous flowers. The blooms may be so subtle that most people, including children, do not notice them. Help your children see these structures as they happen briefly in spring.

The red maples are among the first to bloom. Maples have a variety of flower structures and reproductive strategies. Some have yellow-green flower clusters that have both staminate and pistillate flowers. Others make extra staminate flowers and only a few with pistils.

Red maples are mostly dioecious – they have staminate and pistillate flowers on separate trees. I say “mostly” because I have seen and read other reports that a tree of one sex will sometimes have one branch that has the opposite sex flowers. This probably helps insure that pistillate flowers will receive the pollen they need to make seeds.

When the red maple starts to bloom, you may notice a red tint on the branch tips. If you can find a branch that is low enough for you to examine (try binoculars if the branches are too high), you will find one of two types of flowers. Neither has petals; both are small. The pistillate flowers (left) have two-branched stigmas showing. They are more intensely red than the staminate flowers (right), which look like a tiny pom-pom in reddish pink.

After the flowers bloom, the staminate flowers fall off. They have released their pollen, and their work is done. The pistillate flowers that received pollen continue to grow, and they develop long stalks with their young fruits at the end, often still bearing the drying stigmas. The fruits will become the maple keys; two grow joined together, but they split at maturity. This makes a maple fruit a schizocarp. Its two sections are samaras, winged fruits that the wind disperses.

Elms are another family of early bloomers. Their flowers are tiny, just two little furry stigmas surrounded by stamens. The developing fruits – again they are samaras – often color the tree a spring green and then turn brown before the leaves are completely unfurled.

Ask your children to think about the adaptation of blooming early, having wind-pollinated flowers, and having wind-dispersed fruits. They may be able to reason that the trees must bloom early so that their leaves won’t interfere with the pollen transfer. Some trees, like the elms, even disperse their seeds before the leaves block the wind from the mature fruits.

Swelling buds and developing leaves and shoots make great subjects for botany observation. Enjoy them with your children as the shoots and the spring develop.

Priscilla, April 9, 2018