FLOWER STRUCTURE AND FUNCTION Flowering plants or angiosperms

FLOWER STRUCTURE AND FUNCTION

Flowering plants, or angiosperms, make up the greatest number of plants on Earth. Each angiosperm is made up of four separate organs: roots, stems, leaves, and flowers.

Leaves are important sites for photosynthesis. Their waxy coat also helps prevent the plant from losing too much water and drying out. The flowers of an angiosperm contain its reproductive parts.

Roots stabilize the plant, and they also absorb water and nutrients from the soil. The stem stabilizes the part of the plant that is above ground. It allows the plant to grow higher and wider.

REPRODUCTION Flowers have either male or female reproductive parts. The STAMEN holds the male reproductive parts. It produces pollen, which is a powder containing the male sperm. The female parts are located in the PISTIL. At the bottom of the pistil, there is a hollow structure called an ovary that contains a female egg cell.

ANTHER Contains pollen, the male reproductive cell. Located at the tip of the flowers stamen.

FILAMENT The filament is the part of the flower that holds the anther

OVARY • The ovary is a female reproductive organ in plants that produces ovules.

PETAL A petal is one of the leafy structures that comprise a flower. Petals are often brightly-covered and have many different shapes.

SEPAL The sepals are small leaves located directly under a flower-they are the outermost part of a flower.

STEM (PEDUNCLE) The stem supports the plant.

STIGMA The stigma is the top part of the pistil. It is sticky which keeps the pollen grains adhered to it.

STYLE The style is the part of the pistil which holds the stigma and allows the pollen to travel to the ovary.

Pollinators are organisms that carry pollen from stamens to pistils. Pollinators include insects, such as honeybees, butterflies, and moths; birds, such as humming birds; and mammals, such as bats. Sometimes wind moves pollen from one flower to another.

Flowers have a wide variety of colors, shapes, sizes, and fragrances. This variation is what attracts different pollinators to different plants.

Each fruit contains the seeds that can develop into new plants. Animals help spread seeds in a number of ways. -Waste -Fur Water and wind can also carry seeds from one place to another.