Parts Of A Flower
What Are The Parts Of A Flower?
In many cases, the parts of a flower are easy to point out, in some flowers however, some parts can be difficult to observe. In fact, in what are called "incomplete flowers", one or more of the floral parts may even be missing. To make things simpler, we'll stick to the "complete" flower, where everything is there. We'll also limit the discussion to perfect flowers. A perfect flower is one which has both male and female reproductive parts, and is in essence self-pollinating, sometimes with a little help from the bees. Probably every flower you have in your garden fits the description of a perfect flower, so you needn't worry too much about it.
The parts of a flower considered to be a complete flower will have everything needed to reproduce itself from seed. The blossoms from flower type to flower type can vary tremendously, in size, shape, and color. Still, every complete flower shares the same basic structure, with the same basic parts.
Starting from the outside of the blossom, the first part is the sepal. Sepals are the normally tiny, leaf-like green parts, usually seen on the underside of the petals. The sepals are usually, but not always, green. In some cases, the fuchsia being one example, the sepals are brightly colored. In the Clematis, the sepals resemble pedals, and the petals themselves are absent. The clematis, in that sense, would be an example of an incomplete flower, missing one of the parts.
The parts of the flower which catch our eye are of course the petals. It is with the petals where we get such a wide variety of blossoms. Petals can be blade-shapes, cup-shaped, bell-like, tube-like, and a whole variety of shapes in between. The petals are for show, not just for beauty's sake, but to attract birds, bees and other pollinators.
The stamens and pistils are the parts of the flower which contain the plant's reproductive elements. The stamens, located just inside the petals, contain the male reproductive elements, comprised of a stalk, or filament, topped by an anther. The anther, usually yellow, contains grains of pollen needed to fertilize the flower and produce seeds. The female reproductive parts, the pistils, are found in the center of the blossom. A tube, or style, is topped by the stigma, which receives the pollen from the anthers. At the bottom end of the style is the ovary, which when receiving the pollen becomes fertilized and will produce seeds.
Pollination can be caused by birds, bees, or just a slight breeze. The arrangement of the parts of a flower permit a gardener to transfer pollen from one flower subspecies to another, and create hybrid seeds ,which will grow to become yet another subspecies type. If you want to get a close look at the parts of the flower, easy blossoms to examine would be tulips and hibiscus, where the stamens and pistils are very pronounced. The basic anatomy of the flower isn't really all that complicated. It's just the bewildering variety of blossoms that make it appear that way.