Use information from the World Wide Web to answer these questions.

EXERCISE 1:
TROPICAL FOOD PLANTS

---

Cultures throughout the world have shared the produce of their countries so extensively that it is easy to forget where they came from. For instance, although the tomato seems quintessentially Italian, it first originated in South America. It is also easy to forget the evolutionary origins of some of our most beloved tropical plants. You will explore the Missouri Botanical Garden's A Tropical Feast page to learn more about the family background and region of origin of several tropical crops. To further explore the relationships between these crops, you will also visit the NCBI/GenBank Taxonomy database and the Monocotyledon page of the Tree of Life.

Print out the worksheet below and click on the links to learn more about tropical food plants.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Name _____________________________________________________

 

Link and Think
Tropical Food Plants

Several of the world's most important crops came from the tropics of Asia, the Americas, and Africa. You will be exploring the relationships of these crops to one another, learning how seemingly different plants are actually related to each other. You will be directed to specific pages to find the information needed to complete this worksheet.

1. As diverse as they might seem, cashews, mangos, avocados, and cinnamon belong to two families--the Laurel family and the Cashew family. Can you figure out which trees are in each family? Explore the nut, fruit, and spice pages of A Tropical Feast and complete the table below.

	Family __________	Family ___________
Species 1
Species 2

Contains Caffeine and Natural Flavors

2. Hot pepper, sweet pepper, and black pepper all share a common name, but do they have even more in common? Find their family, genus, and region of origin at A Tropical Feast. Use the family names, one at a time, to search the NCBI/GenBank Taxonomy database. You should find a page with a pointed hand icon. Click on the link indicated by the pointed hand icon for information on that family. You should then get a page that lists all the taxon levels above family. Use that information to fill in the table below. Tips:

• There are only two classes of flowering plants, monocots (Liliopsida) and dicots (Magnoliopsida).
• Ignore superorders--the taxon between orders and class that ends with -nae.
• New World refers to the Americas, and Old World refers to Asia, Africa, and Europe.

	Sweet Pepper	Hot Pepper	Black Pepper
Genus
Family (-ceae)
Order (-ale)
Class
Native to:

3. Is caffeine, the stimulant found in chocolate, cola soft drinks, and coffee, found only in one family or order of plants? To explore this question, take a look at Spices and Flavorings from the Tropical Feast site and find the plants from which caffeine is derived. Following the same procedure used in question 2, complete the table below. Use the completed table to help you answer the following questions.

• Which caffeine-producing plants originated in Africa?
• Which two plants are from the same family?

	Cacao	Cola	Coffee
Genus
Family (-ceae)
>Order (-ale)
Class
Native to:

Appearances Can Be Deceiving...

4. Among eggplants, sweet potatoes, yams, tomatoes, and hot peppers, which are the most closely and distantly related? Your initial suspicions may not be as accurate as you think. Find out how these five plants are classified using both A Tropical Feast and NCBI/GenBank Taxonomy database. Visit these resources to help you answer the following questions. Use the table to help you organize your notes.

• Which plants are native to the Americas (New World)? Which plant is native to Africa and Asia (Old World)? Which plant is native to both the Old and New World?
• Which three plants belong to the same family? What is the common name for that plant family? Which part of these plants is eaten?
• What part of the yam is eaten? of the sweet potato?
• Which two families are most closely related?
• Which family is grouped with the monocots?

	Eggplant	Sweet Potato	Yam	Tomato	Hot Pepper
Plant Part Used:
Family (-ceae)
>Order (-ale)
Class
Native to:

Tropical Monocots

5. Using A Tropical Feast, classify bananas, bamboo, ginger, pineapple, rice, sugar cane, and tumeric by families.

	Family Bromeliaceae	Family Poaceae	Family Zingiberaceae	Family Musaceae
Common name
Species 1
Species 2
Species 3

6. What is the phylogenetic relationship between these four families? The Monocotyledon page of the Tree of Life lists the names of the two superorders containing these four families: Zingiberanae and Commelinanae. These two superorders are separated by only one node, or point of branching. Visit the Zingiberanae and Commelinanae links and classify the four families by superorder. Count the number of nodes crossed when you trace a family back to its superorder and fill in the table. Which two families branched off from the Zingiberanae and Commelinanae lines first?

Superorder	Zingeberanae		Commelinanae
Family	Zingerberaceae
Nodes crossed	6

--------------------------------------------------------------

Click here to check your answers.

[top]  

Unit 5 Index

Learning Links
Chapter 17 || Chapter 18 || Chapter 19 || Chapter 20

In the News || Link and Think
Spotlight on Careers || Teachers' Lounge

In the Community
Chapter 17 || Chapter 18 || Chapter 19 || Chapter 20

---

Copyright © 2008 by Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Pearson Prentice Hall. All rights reserved.
Privacy Statement, Terms of Use, Permissions