Plant Biology Study Guide: 90 Flashcards on Botany, Photosynthesis and Plant Chemistry

Plant Biology (CL0691) is a 90-card tour of botany as a whole discipline: its history, its chemistry, its subfields and what plants do for us. It reads like an encyclopedia entry turned into cards, which makes it great for breadth. To actually remember it, you need to regroup the cards into a few clusters.

Sample cards

Terms you'll cover: botany, Theophrastus, Dioscorides' De materia medica, embryophytes, gametophyte, sporophyte, alternation of generations, chloroplasts from cyanobacteria, chlorophyll a and b, Calvin cycle, G3P, ATP and NADPH, starch vs inulin, cellulose, lignin, pectin, xyloglucan, C4 and CAM pathways, photorespiration, coniine, morphine, aspirin from willow, anthocyanins, indigo, mycorrhizae, biomes, ecological succession, climax vegetation, transpiration, stomata, auxin and 2,4-D, bryophytes, vascular plants, Systema Sexuale, Angiosperm Phylogeny Group, DNA barcoding, Great Oxygenation Event, biofuels, charcoal.

Study it in four clusters, not 90 cards in a row

1. Photosynthesis chain (cards 8, 12–19, 25, 90): light reactions → ATP + NADPH → Calvin cycle → rubisco → G3P → starch. Photorespiration and its C4/CAM workarounds sit at the very end of the deck; move card 90 next to card 25.
2. Cell-wall polymers: cellulose, lignin, pectin, xyloglucan, cutin, sporopollenin. Ask yourself what each one protects against.
3. Plant chemistry for humans: coniine, morphine, aspirin, THC, caffeine, anthocyanins, indigo, rubber, biofuels.
4. History and people: Theophrastus, Dioscorides, Fuchs, Brunfels, Bock, Linnaeus, Schleiden, Mendel, Cowles, Clements, Haberlandt.

Tip: build an "-ology" contrast table

The deck has ten subfield names that are easy to swap: bryology (mosses), pteridology (ferns), dendrology (woody plants), xylology (wood), carpology (fruit), palynology (pollen), palaeobotany (fossils), phytogeography (distribution), phytopathology (disease), ethnobotany (plants and people). Learn the Greek root once (bryon moss, pteris fern, dendron tree, xylon wood, karpos fruit) and the whole cluster falls into place. Dendrology vs xylology is the pair most people get wrong.

Fix these cards before you review them

• Card 40 asks for a percentage of atmospheric oxygen, but the back gives none. Rewrite the front as a who-question (plants, algae, cyanobacteria).
• Card 54 says vascular tissue is xylem and vessels; it should read xylem and phloem.
• Card 72 credits Mendel with the gene-chromosome theory. Mendel described inheritance factors; the link to chromosomes came from Sutton and Boveri (1902–1903).
• Card 77: auxin's growth effect was shown by Frits Went in 1926–28. The 1948 date refers to Thimann's later synthesis, not the discovery.

For the biochemistry behind the photosynthesis cluster, see our guide to Metabolism & Energy.

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