Dichotomous Key
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One response to “Dichotomous Key”
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Hi Ian, Your key is very descriptive. I like your use of botanical vocabulary such as needle, cone, leaf shape, margins etc. You use basic terms without getting too technical, which can really sink me when I am trying to use a key.
The first description, A, leads to only one choice, photo #1, which is clearly an evergreen and probably a white spruce. I would need more choices to determine what kind of spruce, and I hear it can be hard to differentiate species even in the field sometimes!
The second description, A prime, leads to more choices. It leads me to differentiate between the flowers based on both the presence of flowers and their colors. This gives me a clear choice, since one photo obviously has white flowers, one has purple, and one has a structure that a new botany student may not even really know is a flower. So your “flowers may be inconspicuous” is very helpful.
From there, I can use the leaf descriptions to make my final discriminations!
Very nicely done, thank you!
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