NCERT Solutions Curiosity Chapter 2 In-text Questions — — Other features for grouping plants

Book page 17 & 18 Updated on2026-09-05

Q1.

What can be other features on the basis of which you can group plants?

Answer

Besides height and the nature of the stem, plants can be grouped on many other features:

Venation of leaves — reticulate or parallel (taken up right after this question).
Type of root — taproot or fibrous root.
Number of cotyledons in the seed — dicot or monocot.
Presence or absence of flowers — a rose plant flowers, a fern never does.
Leaf shape and arrangement — broad or narrow; one leaf at a point or a pair facing each other.
Where they grow — in water (lotus, water hyacinth), on land (neem), in a desert (cactus), on mountains (deodar).
Life span — a few months (wheat, mustard), a few years (banana), or a very long time (banyan).
Use to us — food crops, medicinal plants (tulsi, aloe vera), timber, ornamental plants.

Which basis is best? The one that is easy to check and does not change with age or season. Height changes as a plant grows and flowers appear only in one season, but the venation of a leaf and the type of root stay the same all through the plant's life — so the chapter builds its main grouping on those.

Q2.

Do you think that plants can be grouped on the basis of venation present in their leaves?

Answer

Yes. Venation is one of the best bases available, because there are only two patterns and every leaf falls clearly into one of them.

Plants with reticulate venation → hibiscus, mango, neem, tulsi, mustard, chana, rose
Plants with parallel venation → banana, grass, wheat, maize, sugarcane, bamboo, lemongrass
Two clear groups, no plant left out and none in both

Why it is such a useful basis:

It is easy to observe — one leaf and a little sunlight are enough; nothing has to be dug up or cut.
It does not change with the age of the plant or the season.
It predicts other features. As the very next activities show, a plant with reticulate venation almost always has a taproot and two cotyledons, and one with parallel venation has fibrous roots and one cotyledon. One quick look at a leaf tells you three things about the plant.

Q3.

Now, let us try to explore roots of the plants. Do all plants have roots? Are these roots similar?

Answer

Almost all the plants you see around you do have roots — but the roots are not all similar.

Do all plants have roots? Every plant you meet in your garden, field or park — grass, tomato, rose, mango — has roots. They hold the plant firmly in the soil and take up water and minerals. (A few simple plants such as mosses and floating algae have no true roots, but you will study those in higher classes.)

Are the roots similar? No. Dig out two plants carefully and you will see two clearly different arrangements:

In a mustard plant there is one main thick root going straight down, with small side roots branching off it.
In a grass plant there is no main root at all — a bunch of thin roots of similar size comes out from the base of the stem.

Tip before you dig: wet the soil and loosen it with a khurpi first. Roots are thin and break easily, and a broken root system will show you the wrong picture. Wash the roots in water before observing, and replant the herb afterwards.

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