These are branches from a red chokeberry shrub on a paper mount. While the berries were originally a bright red color, they have since become dark brown. The leaves are ovular and ridgeless, with a pointed tip at the end of the leaf. The berries are less than 1 cm in size, the leaves are about 8.5 cm in length, and the branches are about 27 cm. The full mount is about 38 cm in height and 29 cm in length. This specimen description was written remotely based on images as part of Amber Kreiensieck's internship in Fall 2021.
- Catalog Number:
- 400849
- Object/Specimen Description:
- Specimen Count:
- 1
- Collector:
- N. Erwin
- Precise Locality:
NMNH Butterfly Garden
- Locality:
- US Mid Atlantic (PA, NJ, MD, DE, DC, VA, WV)
- Collecting Date:
- 20 Sep 2012
- Collecting Locality:
- North America, United States, District of Columbia
- Cabinet:
- 04
- Drawer/Shelf:
- 07
- Upper Level Taxonomy:
- Plantae, Equisetopsida, Magnoliidae, Rosanae, Rosales, Rosaceae, Amygdaloideae
Dicots begin their lives as seeds nourished by two seed leaves (cotyledons). The leaves provide nutrients to the developing seed until it grows its first real leaves that can make food by photosynthesizing. Most flowering plants are dicots, which includes many of the foods humans enjoy: grapes, squash, soybeans, strawberries, tomatoes, potatoes, peanuts, etc. You can tell a dicot by its characteristic branching leaf veins. Not only do dicots feed us, they also cloth us; cotton, linen, and hemp are dicots. Because dicots and conifers are the only plants able to form wood, they are central to our building industry. Wood is extra plant tissue for transporting water and nutrients (vascular tissue). It forms when cells specialized for growth (meristems) continue to divide. The result is that the tree grows, adding to its width and height. Maples, oaks, and hickories, all sources of wood, are dicots.