Download Readers’ Theater Language Arts Support

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Language Arts Support
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LESSON 3
Readers’ Theater
CHARACTERS: Mr. Jenkins (florist), Ms. Lee (florist), Jenny (helper), and Ileana (helper)
SETTING: A florist’s workshop
Mr. Jenkins: (into the phone) Thank you for your order, Ms. Gomez. We’ll have the flowers
delivered to Fran’s house by two o’clock this afternoon. (hangs up the phone) Ms. Lee, can
you take care of the order for Ms. Gomez?
Ms. Lee: Absolutely. What kinds of flowers does she want?
Jenny: Probably an arrangement just like the last one—roses, mums, and daisies with a few
ferns.
Ileana: What’s the difference? Plants are all alike. They all have flowers and seeds.
Mr. Jenkins: I think that all plants are beautiful, each in their own way. There are so many
different kinds of plants—you could never get bored with them!
Ms. Lee: Actually, all of them don’t have seeds or flowers. The mosses and ferns that we use
in our flower shop, for example, are seedless plants.
Ileana: You’re kidding!
Mr. Jenkins: Jenny, maybe you can explain plant reproduction to Ileana using what you
Jenny: One important thing I learned is that plants have two life stages called generations.
One generation is the diploid stage, and the other is the haploid stage. So plants go back
and forth between these two stages, and that’s called alternation of generations.
Ms. Lee: I never knew that.
Ileana: But how do plants grow without seeds? I thought all plants grew from seeds. In my
high school biology class, we learned that pollen grains form inside the stamen, which is
the male reproductive structure of a plant. Plants are pollinated when these grains are
transferred to the stigma, located at the top of the pistil, which is the female reproductive
structure of a plant. I thought that’s the way it happened with every plant.
Jenny: No, that only happens with seed plants. In those plants, the female reproductive
structure contains ovules. When pollination occurs, a seed develops after an ovule is
fertilized. The seed contains an embryo, along with a food supply and a protective covering.
Seedless plants grow from haploid spores, not seeds.
Ileana: Okay, so some plants don’t have seeds. But some plants don’t have flowers either?
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Plant Processes and Reproduction
Copyright © Glencoe/McGraw-Hill, a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
learned in your college course in botany.
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Date
Class
Reader’s Theater continued
Mr. Jenkins: Correct. Some plants, like moss, have no seeds and no flowers. Other plants do
have seeds but they do not have flowers. These plants are called gymnosperms. The most
common gymnosperms are conifers, like pine trees, firs, redwoods, or yews. They produce
their male and female reproductive structures in cones, not flowers.
Ms. Lee: Gymnosperms are beautiful, but everyone seems to like the flowering plants best.
Jenny: Flowering plants are called angiosperms. Did you know that almost all the fruits
and vegetables we eat come from angiosperms?
Ileana: Really? So we just ate angiosperms for lunch?
Jenny: We sure did. Fruits develop from the ovaries of flowering plants. After pollination
occurs, a pollen tube grows down from the pollen grain to the ovary at the base of the
pistil. Sperm develop from a haploid cell in the pollen tube, and when they enter an ovule,
the sperm are released and fertilization takes place.
Mr. Jenkins: After fertilization occurs, a zygote forms and develops into an embryo. The
embryo, inside its ovule, becomes a seed.
Ms. Lee: That’s right, and remember that an ovary contains one or more ovules. So the
ovary develops into a fruit that contains one or more seeds. Peapods, tomatoes, peppers,
avocados, and walnuts are fruits!
Copyright © Glencoe/McGraw-Hill, a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
Jenny: And then the seeds can grow into new plants, so the cycle starts over again.
Ileana: Wow, I didn’t realize that plants are so interesting.
Jenny: Now that we’ve had our botany lesson, let’s get to work and put some of these
beautiful plants into an arrangement for Fran’s birthday!
Plant Processes and Reproduction
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