Mary Jones and Geoff Jones Solutions for Chapter: Reproduction in Flowering Plants, Exercise 3: Exercise 14.3

Name the genus to which the coffee tree belongs.

Coffee trees have flowers with white petals and a very pleasant scent. Use this information to determine whether coffee trees are insect-pollinated or wind-pollinated. Explain.

Name the type of reproduction that is used when a grower produces new coffee trees using cuttings.

Would you expect Coffea arabica and Coffea canephora to be able to reproduce with each other? Explain the answer.

Outline the events that must happen in a flower of Coffea arabica, before fertilization take place.

Imagine that you are a coffee grower. A fungal disease called coffee rust has recently begun to attack some of the Coffea arabica trees. Some of them seem to be resistant to the fungus and survive, while others are badly damaged. The trees also vary in the quality of the coffee beans that they produce. 

Use the understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of different methods of reproduction, to suggest ways in which you might be able to produce a large number of coffee trees that are able to survive attack by coffee rust.