Question

Read the scenario and answer the following questions in complete sentences and with good details.Sam, a three year old, picked a beautiful flower for his mom. He was super excited to show her and put it on her pillow. By the time his mom got home, the flower was wilted. She told him it was okay and to put the flower in a vase of water. He did and the flower perked up. The next day, Sam was worried that his flower was hungry so he fed it by dumping lots of sugar into the water.What organelle within the plant cell was most responsible for the flower wilting the first time? What caused it to wilt and why was the flower able to perk back up?What most likely happened to the flower when Sam "fed" it? Explain the cellular processes that happened. Use some of your vocab words in your answer.

Answer 1

The organelle that was responsible for the flower wilting is called vacuole.

Vacuoles have the function of maintaining what is called turgor pressure in the plant cells. This provides structure and support to the plant by making the tissue rigid.

When Sam cuts the flower it starts to loose water from its cells and vacuoles inside them, and as a result the rigidity of the flower is lost and it wilties.

When Sam puts the flower again in the water it stars to absorbe the water and the vacuoles inside the flower's cells can provide the tugor pressure again. This is why the plant perks up.

When Sam adds sugar to the water the sugar concentration outside the cell's membrane is higher than the sugar concentration inside, so the cell starts loosing water by a process called exosmosis.

So we can say that what is most likely to happen is that the flower will wilt again.