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Most plants pass on life to future plant generations by seeds. It is the work of a flower to make seed. All its beauty serves this one purpose. Color and perfume attract insects and hummingbirds to aid in the flower’s pollination. Some flowers are so formed that they admit certain insects and no others. The chief seed-making parts are the stamens, pistil, and ovary. Many interesting flower shapes have developed that protect these parts.
Flowering plants, or angiosperms as they are generally called, are the largest and most diverse group of plants on Earth. They are defined as vascular plants that enclose their seeds within an ovary; the ovary itself is generally enclosed in a flower. Angiosperms make up the class Magnoliopsida, which belongs to the division Tracheophyta, or vascular plants.
A flower’s beauty and perfection of form may be enjoyed more fully if one understands its structure and how each part helps in the work of seed making. A typical flower has four sets of organs. From the outside to the center, they are sepals, petals, stamens, and pistils. The leaflike sepals make up the calyx, or “cup.” The petals form the corolla, or “little crown.” The calyx and the corolla together form the perianth. When present, the bract is a small leaf below the flower. Awns are stiff bristles that terminate some flower parts.
The flower rises from the axil of the bract; that is, the angle between the bract and the stem. Bracts are sometimes the most conspicuous feature of a flower and may be mistaken for petals. This is true of dogwood, poinsettia, and Indian paintbrush. Sometimes one great bract forms a hood, called a spathe, as in the jack-in-the-pulpit, the calla lilly, and the skunk cabbage. The top of the stem, to which the parts are attached, is the receptacle. The stem is also called a pedicel.
The sepals are the lower, or outermost, part of the flower. They fold over the tender, closed bud and protect it from cold and other injuries while it is developing. Usually sepals are green. In many flowers, however, they are as colorful as the petals and increase the flower’s attractiveness to insects. Tulips, irises, and the yellow pond lily, or spatterdock, are examples.
The petals attract insects and hummingbirds to help in the work of pollination. By their fragrance and color they advertise their sweets—the nectar in the heart of the flower. This is the reward the flower offers its helpers. Glands at the base of the petals secrete nectar. Oil in the petals gives the flower its perfume.
Many flowers have petals of the same size and shape arranged in a circle. They are said to be regular. The wild rose is typical. The petals of the morning glory and petunia are joined, forming a funnel-shaped corolla. Each portion is regular in shape, but the petals are united. Such flowers are sympetalous. Pictures in this article show several common types of irregular flowers. Many irregular flowers are pollinated only by a certain kind of insect. The snapdragon can be sprung open only by the heavy bumblebee.
The simplest flowers have no sepals or petals at all. The small flowers of grasses consist commonly of three stamens surrounding a single pistil. They are said to be naked. Some flowers are apetalous; that is they have no petals.
Some flowers are tiny but grow in showy clusters. In the largest family of flowering plants, called Asteraceae, tiny florets are set so closely together in a solid head on a receptacle that one mistakes them for a single flower. A dandelion is a composite. In other composite flowers, such as the daisy and sunflower, perfect seed-producing flowers are found only in the center. The rim is made up of ray flowers. Garden flowers in this group are the aster, zinnia, dahlia, chrysanthemum, and marigold. The family includes many weeds, such as ragweeds and thistles.
Inside the ring of petals are the stamens. Each stamen has a stem, which is called the filament. At the top of the filament is the anther. The pollen grains form in sacs, usually two in number, inside the anther.
Finally, inside the ring of stamens is the pistil. It is shaped like a vase, with a neck and oval base. The neck is known as the style. On top of the style is a stigma, which has a sticky surface. Its purpose is to catch and hold the pollen. The base of the pistil is the seedcase, called the ovary. Inside the ovary are one or more eggs, the ovules, which become the embryo plant. Some flowers—the lotus, buttercup, and strawberry, for example—have many pistils. The pistils may be separate from one another or they may be closely united. A simple pistil, or one of the segments of a compound pistil, is called a carpel.
The parts of a flower are attached to the receptacle, or base, in three different ways. If they are attached at the base of the ovary, the flower is hypogynous, meaning “growing on the lower side of the ovary.” The tiger lily is an example of this type. In the second form the receptacle is cup-shaped and encloses the ovary. The sepals, petals, and stamens are attached to the rim, surrounding the pistil but free from it. The flower is said to be perigynous, meaning “around the ovary.” The cherry blossom is perigynous. In a third type the ovary grows fast to the receptacle, and the parts grow from its top. The flower is epigynous, meaning “growing upon the ovary.” An example is the apple blossom.
When ripe pollen from an anther of the same kind of flower catches on the stigma, each pollen grain sends out a tiny threadlike tube. The tube grows down through the style and pierces one of the ovules in the ovary. This process is called fertilization. Each ovule must receive the contents of the pollen tube before it can develop into a seed. It usually takes the tube from two to five days to reach the ovule, but the time may vary from a few hours to six months.
A seed cannot grow until pollen is transferred from the stamen to the pistil. This transfer is called pollination. Since flowers cannot go after pollen, they depend upon some carrier to bring it to them. Flowers are pollinated by flies, moths, wasps, bees, and sometimes by hummingbirds. The flowers attract these helpers by their color, fragrance, and nectar. Some flowers open in the evening and invite night-flying insects to their banquet table. Such flowers are usually white or pale yellow, the colors that show best at dusk.
To reach the nectar, insects must crawl over the pistils and anthers into the heart of the flower. Their bodies become covered with pollen dust. As they move from flower to flower, they transfer the pollen of one to the stigma of another. Flowers that require the help of insects are called entomophilous, meaning “insect-loving.” Some flowers can be pollinated only by a single kind of insect. The fig, yucca, and red clover are examples.
Certain flowers depend upon the wind to bring pollen to them. They are called anemophilous, or “wind-loving.” Most trees, the grasses, sedges, and many other plants depend upon wind pollination. Wind-pollinated flowers have no sepals or petals, for the wind has no need for nectar and fragrance. They are dull in color. They produce enormous quantities of pollen. The wind scatters pollen indiscriminately, so that only a small percentage falls on the stigmas of the same kind of flower.
A few kinds of flowers are self-pollinating; that is, they can be fertilized with their own pollen. In most cases, however, nature takes great care to prevent self-pollination. Cross-pollination usually produces more vigorous plants. This requires the transfer of pollen from one plant to the stigma of another plant of the same species.
Flowers avoid self-pollination in several ways. In some cases the stamens and pistils mature at different times. In other flowers the stamens are shorter than the pistils and hence do not deposit pollen on their own stigma. Wind-pollinated flowers usually bear the stamens and pistils in separate flowers. Alders, birches, walnuts, and hickories bear catkins with pistillate flowers on some branches and catkins with staminate flowers on other branches. Corn (maize) has the pistils and stamens on different parts of the same plant. The tassel bears the staminate flowers; the ear bears the pistillate flowers. These are known as monoecious (of the same household) plants. A few trees, such as cottonwoods and willows, carry the separation even further, with the staminate flowers on one tree and the pistillate on another. These are known as dioecious (of two households) plants.
After fertilization of the ovule has taken place the petals, sepals, stamens, and usually the upper part of the pistil fall off. Now, as the ovules grow into seeds (embryo plants), the ovary, or seedcase, also changes. In some plants it turns into a fleshy covering, called fruit. The ovary wall separates into two layers. The inner layer becomes a hard shell, called a stone, or pit, which encloses the seed. The outer layer forms the pulpy portion of the fruit. The peach, plum, cherry, and apricot are examples. In the case of berries the entire ovary becomes a fleshy mass in which the seeds are embedded. In the apple, pear, and quince, the ovary and its seeds become the core of the fruit. The pulpy part, which is eaten, is the modified calyx.
The ovaries of many plants develop into so-called dry fruits—capsules, pods, nuts, and acorns. Like the fruits and berries, they protect the seeds and help scatter them when they are mature. Another kind of dry fruit is the achene. In this case the ovary wall becomes a coating of the single seed. It does not open at maturity, as the pods and capsules do, to release the seed. Achenes are developed by flowers that produce but one ovule, such as the individual flowers of the composites. The style of the pistil sometimes remains attached to the achene as a long, feathery tail that carries the seed away on the wind. The most common flower with seeds that are readily scattered by the wind is the dandelion, regarded by most people as a weed.
At least 250,000 species of flowering plants are known. All of them descend from a primitive ancestor that no longer exists. The most primitive modern flowers are the members of the buttercup order, Ranales. A step higher is the rose order, Rosales.
The simplest flowers are the least skillful in making seed. Many stamens mean a great deal of pollen is wasted. A large number of pistils means that many will fail to become pollinated and produce seed. All members of the buttercup order, which includes the little buttercup itself and the splendid magnolia and water lilies, and all the roses have many pistils and stamens. The most highly specialized and most successful flowers are the composites. (See also flowers, garden; flowers, wild.)
