![]() Main article: Plant reproductive morphology Reproductive parts of Easter Lily ( Lilium longiflorum). The early word for flower in English was blossom, though it now refers to flowers only of fruit trees. It comes originally from the Latin name of the Italian goddess of flowers, Flora. After fertilization, the ovary of the flower develops into fruit containing seeds.įlowers have long been appreciated by humans for their beauty and pleasant scents, and also hold cultural significance as religious, ritual, or symbolic objects, or sources of medicine and food.įlower is from the Middle English flour, which referred to both the ground grain and the reproductive structure in plants, before splitting off in the 17th century. Some flowers produce diaspores without fertilization ( parthenocarpy). This pollination does not require an investment from the plant to provide nectar and pollen as food for pollinators. Self-pollination happens in flowers where the stamen and carpel mature at the same time, and are positioned so that the pollen can land on the flower's stigma. Some flowers may self-pollinate, producing seed using pollen from a different flower of the same plant, but others have mechanisms to prevent self-pollination and rely on cross-pollination, when pollen is transferred from the anther of one flower to the stigma of another flower on a different individual of the same species. When pollen from the anther of a flower is deposited on the stigma, this is called pollination. In this way, many flowering plants have co-evolved with pollinators to be mutually dependent on services they provide to one another-in the plant's case, a means of reproduction in the pollinator's case, a source of food. Most flowering plants depend on animals, such as bees, moths, and butterflies, to transfer their pollen between different flowers, and have evolved to attract these pollinators by various strategies, including brightly colored, conspicuous petals, attractive scents, and the production of nectar, a food source for pollinators. The female gametophytes are contained within the ovules produced in the carpels. The male gametophytes, which produce sperm, are enclosed within pollen grains produced in the anthers. Flowers consist of a combination of vegetative organs – sepals that enclose and protect the developing flower, petals that attract pollinators, and reproductive organs that produce gametophytes, which in flowering plants produce gametes. For other uses, see Floral (disambiguation).Ī flower, also known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants (plants of the division Angiospermae).
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