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Flowers
The reproductive organ of most garden plants. Flowers are often large and
bright-coloured to attract pollinators but are sometimes quite small and
inconspicuous. Regardless of appearance, a flower is successful if it produces
viable seeds.
Flowers, name for the specialized part of a plant
containing the reproductive organs, applied to angiosperms only. A flower
may be thought of as a modified, short, compact branch bearing lateral
appendages. Like twigs, flowers develop from buds, and the basic floral
parts (sepal, petal, stamen, and carpel) are in actual fact greatly
modified leaves. A typical flower is a concentric arrangement of these
parts attached at their base to the receptacle, the tip of the stem.
Outermost is a whorl of leaflike green sepals (the calyx) encircling a
whorl of usually showy, coloured petals (the corolla). Within the corolla
the stamens, bearing anther sacs full of pollen, surround the central
carpels (ovary). Inside the ovary at the base of the pistil are the
ovules, containing the female sex cells; after fertilization of the egg,
the ovule becomes the seed and the ovary becomes the fruit. The ovary and
stamens are termed essential flower parts, the petals and sepals accessory
parts. The number and arrangement of the floral organs vary considerably
among the many families and orders of plants and are used in the
classification of plants; they also indicate the degree of evolution of
the plant. In general, the higher a plant is on the evolutionary scale,
the greater is the flower's complexity. The basic number of parts differs
from class to class and from family to family; in monocotyledonous plants
the parts generally occur in groups of three or in multiples of three, and
in dicotyledons more often in groups of two, four, and five. Flowers may
be staminate (lack carpels), carpellate, or both; staminate and carpellate
flowers may appear on the same plant, on separate plants, or in the same
inflorescence. One type of inflorescence, characteristic of the parsley
family, is the umbel, in which the tiny florets are borne on separate
stalks radiating out from the stem tip. Sometimes the parts serve unusual
purposes: the true flowers of the dogwood and the poinsettia are
inconspicuous, and the showy petals are really modified leaves called
bracts. In the jack-in-the-pulpit the florets are clustered on a spike
canopied by a large bract, the spathe; the hood of the lady's-slipper, on
the other hand, is a modified sterile stamen. Grass inflorescences are
tiny spikelets sheathed by protective scales called glumes (the chaff or
grain). Flowers have been cultivated and bred for their beauty and their
perfume from earliest times and have accumulated a vast and intricate
treasury of symbolic associations derived from legend and folklore.
Individual flowers have been celebrated in heraldry (rose), in religion
(lotus), and in politics (violet) and have become emblems for many
countries, including Switzerland (edelweiss), France (fleur-de-lis),
Scotland (thistle), Holland (tulip), and the United States (see state
flowers).
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