Botany 110 Lab Schedule
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Botany 110 Spring Schedule & Requirements

Note: This is a 4 unit lecture/laboratory course. The class meets 6-10 P.M. Tueday night for 16 weeks during the spring semester, plus 6 Saturday field trips (2 all-day field trips: 8-5 and 4 half-day field trips 8-12). The lecture and labs add up to a total of 96 hours for a 16 week semester, the required number of hours for a 4 unit lecture/lab class. On Tuesday night, the first half of the class is devoted to lecture and the 2nd "hands on" half is primarily devoted to keying out various unknown plants (mostly naturalized weedy species) using a dichotomous key: The Jepson Manual: Higher Plants of California by James C. Hickman (Editor), University of California Press, 1993. Mastering a technical flora such as The Jepson Manual requires a lot of terminlogy and microscope skills. Rather than rote memorization you actually learn how to identify plants in a variety of different plant families, a skill that you can take with you wherever you go. This class also includes some of the large and more difficult groups, such as the grass, sedge, rush, legume and sunflower families.


Botany 110 Field Trip Schedule   Spring 2004   W.P.Armstrong

  • Mar 6 (8-l2).....Coastal Sage Scrub & Grassland (hills west of campus-the rare & beautiful chocolate lily; San Marcos vernal pools).

  • Mar 27 (8-4).....Creosote Bush Scrub (Coyote Creek north of Borrego Springs or Jacumba & Mountain Springs area).

  • Apr 3 (8-12).....Recently burned Chaparral (Hillsides near Gopher Canyon, Carlsbad, Del Dios Hwy, Lake Hodges or Rancho Bernardo area).

  • Apr 17 (8-2).....Vernal Pools, Oak Woodland (Santa Rosa Plateau northwest of Temecula; or San Marcos, Miramar & Penasquitos area; or Coastal Sage Scrub, Chaparral, Oak Woodland (Daley Ranch north of Escondido).

  • Apr 24 (8-12).....Coastal Salt Marsh & Coastal Sage Scrub (San Elijo Lagoon).

  • May 8 (8-4).....Yellow Pine Forest & Mountain Meadow (Cuyamaca Lake and Laguna Mountains or Palomar Mountain State Park).

Note: All Sat. Field Trips Are Required--they are partial fulfillment of laboratory requirement for this course. Additional lab experience includes "keying out" plants with dissecting microscope last half of Tues. lecture/lab session. **Bring lunch and beverage on the two all-day Sat. field trips.**

The introductory labs will be primarily concerned with collecting, pressing and mounting plants, herbarium labels, value of herbarium collections in universities and museums, etc.; also the use of hyperlinked dichotomous taxonomic keys and computer programs in plant identification. See the following links:

Key To Duckweed Genera
Subgroups Of Dioecious Figs
Species Of The Duckweed Family
Flow Chart To California Lemnaceae

We will carpool from Palomar College or meet at a predetermined rendezvous point. [You can deduct the mileage on your income tax statement the following year!]

MAY 11: Plant Collections Due. 12 plants in 12 different families correctly pressed and identified with herbarium I.D. labels (provided in class); mounted plants on herbarium sheets extra credit.

See A Brief Note About Collectors & Collections

MAY 18: Final Keying Out Exam (Pick Up Graded Plant Collections).

Plant collection must be native or naturalized species--not exotic or cultivated ornamentals; any plant listed in the Jepson Manual is OK; weeds are probably the most conservation-minded plants to collect and you can learn a lot about taxonomy and plant families from studying and keying them out.

Attendance will be taken during lab sessions and on field trips. Unknown plants will be given during lecture/lab sessions (especially after I finish covering the introductory material and when wildflowers commence blooming). You must have a copy of the Jepson Manual and bring it to every class meeting. You cannot Share The Text During Keying Out Quizzes!

See Botany 110 Course Syllabus for complete instructions regarding plant collection, course goals/objectives and outline/supplements for all lecture topics.

Note: This course utilizes two grades scales, a traditional grade scale based on the total points and a grade scale based on the highest student. Some students do better on the traditional grade scale while other students do better on a grade scale based on the highest student. Whichever grade scale you do better on, you will receive the higher letter grade according to the following cutoff percentages:

Grade scale based on the highest points achieved by the top student:
  >94.5% (A)   >84.5% (B)   >64.5% (C)   >49.5% (D)    Less than 49.5% (F)  
Traditional grade scale based on percentages of the total points:
>90.0% (A)   >80.0% (B)   >70.0% (C)   >60.0% (D)    Less than 60.0% (F)

Depending on the local weather conditions and availability of wildflowers,
there may be several additional (extra credit) Saturday field trips.

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Course Syllabus, Crossword Puzzles, Index, Biology 100 & Botany 110
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