flowers

The flowers we all know are usually very colourful and have a nice smell. Both characteristics help to attract insects to flowers. Insects eat the nectar, a sweet liquid that can be used to create honey, which is stored in the nectary deep down inside the flower. Insects are very important for the reproduction of plants. You will learn more about how this works later on in this chapter.

A flower is carried by a stalk. At the bottom of the flower, attached to the stalk, you find the sepals. Sepals look a bit like leaves. When the flower is still inside the bud, the sepals around the bud protect the flower against diseases, cold and dehydration. Petals are the colourful parts of a flower. Their function is to attract insects. Most flowering plants have male and female reproductive organs together in one flower.

The stamen is the male reproductive organ of a flower. The most important function of the stamen is to produce pollen grains. Inside the pollen (grains) are the male sex cells. Each stamen consists of an anther  and a filament. Each anther has four sacs which are filled with pollen. When the pollen grains are ripe, the anthers open to release the pollen grains. 

The female reproductive organs

In the middle of the flower you will find the female reproductive organ: the carpel. Some flowers only have one carpel and other flowers have more than one carpel. A carpel consists of a stigma, styleand ovary. The pollen grains (with the male sex cells) that land here, are collected on the stigma. The style is the connection between the stigma and the ovary. In the ovary you find the ovules. Inside the ovule is the female reproductive cell, the egg cell.

These are just the basic parts of a flower. There are a lot of different flowers. They differ not only in colour but also in their organs. Petals and sepals may have grown together. The number of petals, stamens and even carpels can differ. And inside an ovary there may be different numbers of ovules. Each ovule however always has one egg cell.