Keyed Out #062 — Hedera helix

Question 1

Each small greenish flower has five very short {sepals}, five fleshy free {petals} and five {stamens} standing above an ovary already sunk below them, and every flower stalk in the cluster springs from a single point into a rounded head 1.5 to 2 inches (4 to 5 cm) across, not four petals to a flower and not five lobes welded into a tube.

Accepted Answer

ginseng family

Question 2

Its ripe fruit is a soft black fleshy {drupe} about 0.25 inch (6 to 8 mm) across, and cutting one open reveals two or three separate hard one-seeded stones, not a dry fruit that dries and cleaves into two one-seeded halves.

Accepted Answer

Araliaceae

Question 3

It hauls itself up sheer walls and tree trunks to 65 to 100 feet (20 to 30 m) on dense brown {adventitious} rootlets that glue themselves to the surface, rather than standing on its own erect prickly stems or sprawling into a lax mound that has to be tied to its support.

Accepted Answer

Hedera

Question 4

One plant carries two utterly different leaf shapes: the sterile shoots bear blades cut into three to five triangular lobes, while the woody shoots that carry every flower and fruit bear plain undivided diamond-shaped blades, instead of one constant leaf form repeated on every shoot.

Accepted Answer

Hedera

Question 5

Under a lens the hairs on its young growth are white stars 0.5 to 1.0 mm (about 0.02 to 0.04 inch) across whose rays are joined only at the very base and stand up at an angle to the blade, giving a frosted bristling look, not flattened scales whose rays are fused well up their length and lie appressed in a single plane.

Accepted Answer

Hedera helix

Question 6

Its lobed sterile blades are modest, spanning 2 to 4 inches (5 to 10 cm), rather than the huge leathery blades reaching 10 inches (25 cm) long that mark out the largest-leaved member of its group.

Accepted Answer

Hedera helix