Solo [Job Thread] To Tutor the Tutored

[Kaidan Arianos]

Timestamp: 3rd of Winter, 512 A.V. Having been given a tutoring position at the University, Kaidan would make his way to his new office to set stuff up. Having a few wintry plants within the office would make it seem more like home, where his mother grew winter holly berries and mistletoe to keep her company whilst Kaidan was away at school. Granted, she didn't take care of them and Kaidan usually had to stop by to take care of the plants. But that didn't matter, at least it gave Kaidan a reason to see his mother every so often, if not only just to talk to her, and see how she's doing. But that was for another day obviously. Today Kaidan would work to make his office seem more like an office of a botany instructor and tutor, rather than a bland office that didn't have anything in it. Gaining permission from the actual botany professors at the university, Kaidan took a few of the holly berry plants, and placed them in his office where he'd take care of them, in order to give his office more of a botany look to it. Smiling as he would transplant some of the newly planted holly berry bushes to new pots, he'd then place them towards the entrance of his office which was right next to the green house. Finishing the transplanting of the bushes, the young man would then enter his office, and take a seat, reading a pamplet about holly bushes, in order to further his knowledge upon them, she he'd know the proper care for them. A knock came to the door of his office after a few moments, and he wondered who on Mizahar would be knocking up his door so soon after he set up his office? Slowly getting up out of his seat, he opened the door to a young looking boy, probably only about fiteen to sixteen years old, whom grinned when he opened the door up. "Are you Kaidan?" he asked slightly to the young man. Kaidan nodded, and pointed to the sign on the front of the door that stated his name. "Yes, my name is Kaidan... what is it that I can assist you with today?" he then asked the boy. The young teenager, grinned even wider before saying, "My name is Heris, and i'm enrolled in the botany program!" He then motioned towards the notebook in his hand. "I was told to come here and find one Kaidan Arianos in order to learn more about botany, and be tutored in the subject so I can pass my exams given by my professor!" he then said the grin on his face cocking and widening even more. "Well, you've come to the right place, Heris," said Kaidan, whom nodded, and then motioned for the boy to enter the office. "Come on in, and take a seat," he then said, motioning towards the chair that sat on the opposite side of the desk across from Kaidan's chair. "Now, what is it exactly that you are needing help with when it comes to botany?" Kaidan then asked Heris, as the boy took a seat across from Kaidan, and set his notebook down. "Well... I've been having difficulty, I guess with the memorization of the various parts of plants... I mean, I can memorize them, but when it comes to what each of the parts do, their processes and stuff, I sometimes get confused between them," he stated, looking towards Kaidan. "Well, then... how about we go over them, and see what exactly you remember about each of the various parts of a flower. Do you have drawings of each of the parts?" he then asked, looking at Heris. "I do, we drew orchids over the fall," said Heris. "But when it comes to the parts of them, I get confused by what each of them do" Taking out his notebook, he flipped to the page where it had the various parts of the orchid, and Kaidan nodded, looking at it. "Well, you've got all of the information in front of you... let's take that away, and see what you remember off of the top of your head," he said, taking the notebook to his side of the table, closing it, and then looking up towards Heris. ”Now, let us start off with something easy,” said Kaidan. ”How about parts of a flower?” he asked, briefly, before continuing. Taking out a sheet of parchment, he took his quill, and then drew a picture of a flower, while speaking to Heris. ”This is a basic orchid,” he stated, drawing the orchid from memory as he looked towards Heris. ”Now, these long pieces that are sticking out of it, what are they called?” he then asked, pointing towards the petals of the orchid picture he had drawn. It was a crude drawing, but nevertheless one that would obviously depict the picture of the orchid that he was trying to depict for Heris. ”That’s easy,” said Heris. ”Those are petals of the flower.” he then said. ”Yes, but what are they for?” asked Kaidan, looking at Heris. ”Aesthetic purposes?” questioned Heris as he looked towards Kaidan’s drawing, then up towards Kaidan. ”That’s one purpose, but a lot of flower parts have more than one purpose. Aesthetic purposes would be what humans, and other races breed flowers for, but what is the purpose of the petals for the actual flower?” quizzed Kaidan. ”Well, flower petals are used to attract pollinators? The bees, flies, beetles, and other bugs that are attracted to flowers usually are attracted because of the flower’s scent, or the colors of their flowers,” said Heris. ”Good, that’s the purpose of the flower’s petals. Now, to move in closer to the other portions of the flower,” said Kaidan, and pointed towards the anthers that he had draw on the picture next. ”What are these portions of the orchid?” asked Kaidan then. ”Those are anthers… but I’m not sure exactly what they are for…” admitted Heris, looking a bit guilty for not knowing what exactly an anther happened to be doing for the flower. Kaidan nodded, and then said, ”Anthers, happen to be a piece of the flower that contains the pollen of the flower,” he said. ”They are a part of the structure known as the Stamen. The other part of the structure is the filament, this long piece that connects the anther to the flower,” explained Kaidan, pointing towards the piece of the picture that was connecting the anther to the base of the flower. ”So… that’s the male portion of the plant then?” asked Heris, looking up from the picture towards Kaidan. ”Yes, you can consider that the male portion of the flower. Some flowers have only male, some have only female, and others happen to have both of the portions of the flower, both anthers and ovaries,” explained Kaidan. ”The orchids we’ve been studying with our professors generally carry both parts of the plant, the stamen, and the ovaries.” Smiling, he then pointed towards the base of the flower picture, where he had drawn the stem. ”What is carried within this portion of the stem of the orchid?” he then asked, looking up from the picture towards Heris. ”That, is the female portion of the orchid, which happens to be the ovaries, that the pollen travels down the stem to self pollinate the orchid.” Kaidan nodded, and then said, ”Good, that is correct.” Smiling, he then took out another piece of paper and started to draw a crude drawing of a tree upon it. ”Now, let’s switch gears a little bit, and talk about the parts of a tree,” he said, looking towards Heris. ”Unless you still have some questions on the basic parts of the flower?” Heris looked towards the picture, and then said, ”Actually, yes, I do have one basic question about the flower. What is the purpose of the stem?” he asked Kaidan. Nodding, Kaidan took out the flower picture once more, and then said, ”The purpose of the stem is for structure. It holds the flower up, as well as… we think… transports the nutrients from the soil into the flower... That’s just a hypothesis at the moment though.” Smiling, he then moved back towards the tree picture that he had drawn…

[Kaidan Arianos]

"Now, let us focus on the pieces of the tree, the parts of it," said Kaidan, whom looked towards Heris, the young teenager that was learning the basics of botany from him. "Do you know the parts of the tree already? or what exactly they are for? There purposes?" asked Kaidan, of Heris, to see what all he already knew. "We really didn't go over much about trees last semester, and most of it i've forgotten," admitted Heris, as he looked towards Kaidan. Nodding, Kaidan pointed towards the tree. "Here we go then, What is this part? Or do you know what this part is?" he then asked, pointing towards the trunk of the tree. "That happens to be the trunk, way too easy," said Heris. Sighing, Kaidan then grinned, and said, "Well, how about something harder?" he asked, not trying to make it a euphamism, but blushing a bit when he spoke of it. "Er, well, how about the parts of the trunk?" he then asked, and drew a circle representative of the trunk, with several smaller circles within it. "Now, this outer circle, what would you call it? And what is it's purpose, do you think?" he asked Heris, smiling a bit more, hoping he'd remember what he had learned the prior semester about trees, and hoping that it would clue him in as to what exactly Kaidan had drawn on the parchment in order to show Heris the parts of a tree. "Well, I'd hazard a guess that it's the bark of the tree," answered Heris, looking at Kaidan. "And what is it's purpose?" asked Kaidan. "It is utilized by the tree as protection. The outer layer of it protects the inner layers of the tree," said Heris, smiling, at his hopefully correct knowledge of the tree. "Good, good, now, what exactly is the cork of the tree?" he asked, and motioned for Heris to point it out on the drawing that Kaidan had done. "The cork, is the layer underneath the bark. It assists with the outward growth of the tree," said Heris. "Decent enough answer for that," said Kaidan. "Next layer of the tree underneath the cork and bark, would be?" the young man then asked of his charge. "That would be a portion of the sapwood, the secondary xylem and secondary phloem... I'm not sure what they do though," he then said. "Nutrient transport and outer ring growth, not much more is known about them, as we can't see any further than the outer layers of them," he finished. "It's just our hypothesis though." Smiling, he moved on. "Next we have the heartwood. Do you remember what exactly that is for?" he then asked. "I'm guessing it's inner ring growth, that expands outwards into the secondary layers of xylem and phloem," he said. Nodding, Kaidan pointed towards the very center. "They also assist with structure, as does the secondary xylem and phloem, let us not forget about that," he said. "I understand," stated Heris as he looked onwards towards the picture. "Now, that we understand the basics of wood, let us move onto the roots of the tree," said Kaidan, whom then began to draw a larger picture of the roots, and then once the drawing was finished, he began to point towards the various parts, and had Heris name them. "The first part of the roots, the outermost part happened to be what?" he asked of Heris. The boy smiled, and spoke matter-of-factly. "That would be the Root Hairs," said Heris. Kaidan nodded, and then said, "Good, what are they for then?" he asked. "They provide surface area for the roots, so that the roots can absorb more water and nutrients, but that's only a hypothesis that our professor told us about." Nodding, Kaidan then said, "You are correct in that assumption. Professors and people that study botany haven't figure out a way yet of seeing things in a larger fashion, so we can only really hypothesis as to what some of these structures happen to do for the overall plant." "Now what is this portion of the root?" he then asked, pointing towards the outer layer of the root. "That's the epidermis," said Heris, grinning, happy to have remembered the exact name of the part that Kaidan had been pointing towards. "Good good, and what is it used for?" he then asked. "Protection of the root," said Heris. "Decent enough," said Kaidan. "Now, for some other parts of the roots. Can you show me what the pericycle happens to be? And what exactly it's purpose is?" asked Kaidan. "Unfortunately no, sorry, I don't recall what that structure is..." admitted Heris. "That's okay, don't worry about it, we'll go over it right now, so that you know. I'm sure it's in your notes, but better to hear it from me than read it in your notes, so that it sticks... hopefully," said Kaidan, grinning at his partial joke that he was saying to Heris. "Erm, okay then!" said Heris. "Very well, the pericycle is the interior portion of the root. And it has the ability to produce something called 'Lateral Roots'," said Kaidan, looking towards Heris as he spoke of the part of the root called the pericycle. "It's the outer portion of the stele, which is the most inner portion of the root, what we believe, and hypothesis helps with structure as well as the nutrient transport of the plant in general," said Kaidan. Moving his chair backwards, he pulled over one of the Holly berry plants. "Now, to show you all the parts that we've been talking about, we shall start on the dissection of a holly berry bush. This one is a newly grown one, thus should be easy to extract it from the pot, as well as dissect it with the dissecting knife, and show you each of the parts of the plant," he said, smiling. "That sounds good to me, but I do have one question about the lateral roots. Why do some plants have them, and other plants don't?" he asked, looking at Kaidan's plant and wondering what they happened to be for. Nodding, Kaidan then said, "The lateral roots happen to be utilized for helping to root the plant into the ground, as the trunk grows bigger. Lateral roots are usually only found in dicots, or trees as we might normally call them. As the tree grows bigger, it needs to have more roots and deeper root to keep it from falling over. These lateral roots are good in the fact they grow outwards and help to anchor the tree deeper into the ground." Pointing out of the window of his office towards a tree that was near the greenhouse areas, he smiled, and said, "That tree, if it had no lateral roots, would have more than likely fallen over already. Simply because of it's general size and scope, it would need more to anchor it down than it would have with jut a taproot." "What's a taproot?" asked Heris. "A taproot is simply a root that delves straight down from either lateral root, or the main root, anchoring a tree further into the ground. The usually grow fairly large around, and go fairly deep into the ground, so deep so that when removing a stump, it takes a stupidly large amount of time to just dig out the taproots that happen to be keeping the stump stuck within the ground. They usually only occur in the largest of trees that need to best support to keep them held up," said Kaidan, looking out the window briefly, then turning his attention back towards Heris. "Do you have any other questions before we start with the dissection of the holly bush in order to show you the practical parts of the plant? So that you understand them better than just seeing my crude drawings of them?" he asked, finally, and patiently awaited an answer from the young teenager he was tutoring in the subject of botany. "No, I think i'm ready to see the dissection, assist with it, and find out more about the plants that i'll hopefully be taking care of in the future..." he said, smiling, and then awaiting Kaidan to show him the start of the holly bush dissection...