Blog post 7 - Hope Vela

Flowering plants like our broccoli reproduce in a very sophisticated way. This system has been very effective, as flowering plants make up the majority of species and are in most of the terrestrial world. The way sexual plant reproduction works is based around the stamen (image 3) and the carpel (image 4) of the plant. The stamen is the male part of the plant, and the carpel, also sometimes called the pistil, is the female part. The stamen consists of the filaments and the anthers. The anthers are the semi-triangular shape on the end of the filament, which is like a tiny stem. The "cone" of the anther is where all the gametophytes (pollen) comes from. The carpel is the female part of the plant. It is made of 3 main parts the stigma, on the tip, the ovary, at the base, which holds the ovules, and the style, connecting the ovary and stigma. The process works because animals, insects, and the wind carry the pollen to the stigma, from the anthers. The pollen sticks to the stigma and develops a pollen tube that goes through the style and to the ovary. The pollen contains sperm cells which create a seed when they reach the ovary. The seed is then transferred by more animals, more wind, or humans and dropped or planted later. Over time the seed is pushed into the soil by environmental factors like erosion or rain if it's not planted by humans first. This grows into a plant under the right circumstances, and the process starts over.


These images show a flower from our broccoli plant. The flower blooms from the little balls on the ends of the broccoli "trees" that we eat. A "perfect" flower, like this one, will have both female and male parts. They are typically located in the center of the flower to be protected by petals. Some plants, however, have two flowers to pair up, one having a male part and one having a female part. One more variation is when a whole plant has one sex and another plant of the same species has the other. In this case, one plant is female and one is male. This is similar to how humans have the sex that they are given at birth and not both. This is why we would not be able to have a baby with ourselves as a "perfect" flower could.



This is a picture of the flower's male part, the stamen. The stamen is one of the filaments and attached anthers showed. The whole image shows six stamens and a sigma in the middle, which is more green than the stamens and has more of a circular shape rather than triangular. The filament is the stalk that has the anther at the tip. The anther produces grains of pollen, and each grain has the potential to get onto the stigma and provide male gametes to the ovary, makeing a seed that could turn into a new plant.


The photo above is of the carpel. The spherical shape of the tip is the stigma which is sticky so that pollen can adhere to it. The cylindrical part below that is the style and goes into the ovary. These are the female sexual organs in the flower. If pollen were to stick to the stigma, it would form a pollen tube through the style and into the ovary to make a new plant.


This final image is the carpel with all of the other parts stripped away. We have taken off all the sepals, petals, and stamens, surrounding the carpel. The ovary has been sliced open to expose the ovules, which are tiny, young, unfertilized seeds. They are most visible down the left side of the split.



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