Fascinating Parts of a Flower

Flowers have long been considered representations of elegance in most civilisations, and flower giving remains one of the most popular social activities. Flowers are given as gifts, used as decorations at marriages and other events, symbols of respect for the departed, encouraging gifts to the bedridden, and demonstrations of thanks or gratitude. They add colour and texture to our diversity. Flowers are vital food sources for many organisms and important botanical structures. The flower is a crucial way for a plant to attract pollinators, who are required for the plant to generate seeds, which are the reproductive structures that help a species survive generation after generation. Flowers also shield seeds while they grow, ensuring that genetic material is passed down the generations. Angiosperms are flower-producing plants that have developed to span a broad range of sizes, forms, and colours.

Fascinating Parts of Flowers and their Importance

Flowers offer an almost infinite variety of combinations in terms of colour, size, and structural arrangement. Individual flowers are relatively large and showy in plants like poppies, petunias, magnolias, and tulips and are produced singly, whereas individual flowers may be very small in other plants–such as asters, snapdragons, and lilacs–and are borne in a distinguished cluster known as an inflorescence. No matter how different they are, flowers always have the same goal: to propagate the species by growing. A flower has two most essential parts which perform two different types of functions:

• The vegetative part of the plant is known as the perianth. It is the non-reproductive part of the plant and surrounds the reproductive parts, giving them protection.
• The reproductive part consists of the male reproductive part known as androecium and the female reproductive part known as the gynoecium.

Perianth

The perianth is the plant’s non-reproductive, vegetative part surrounding the androecium and the gynoecium. It consists of two important parts known as calyx and corolla. It is present in the Liliaceae family. Most plants have separate calyx and corolla.

Parts of the perianth

Calyx: The calyx is a protective structure at the bottom of a flower that comprises leaf-like features. Sepals are the leaf-like components that make up the flower. These sepals are frequently as numerous as the petals. Although most calyces are green, there are instances where the calyx is the same colour as the flower’s petals or has a completely different hue. The calyx is an important part of the flowering plant. The flower is tightly closed into a bud as it develops. The sepals are the flower’s outer covering as it develops, and they are the only visible part of the bloom while it is in bud form. It guards the developing blossom and prevents it from rotting.

Corolla: The brilliantly coloured petals of the flower are the most prominent characteristic of most flowering plants. Flower petals are frequently organized in a circle all around the flower’s centre, and this group of petals is known as the corolla.

Arrangement of the perianth

The perianth of flowering plants can be dichlamydeous/heterochlamydeous, meaning the calyx and corolla are distinctly separated, or homochlamydeous, meaning they are undifferentiated. The arrangement of perianth into different forms is called perianth aestivation. Floral leaves and petals can be in one whorl or different whorls.

Floral leaves and petals in one whorl:

• Valvate: Floral leaves in a whorl may almost touch at the margins without overlapping.
• Twisted or contorted: When the overlapping is uniform in one direction so that one member’s margin overlaps the next on one side while the other member’s margin overlaps the one before, the bud seems twisted.

Floral leaves and petals in different whorls

• Imbricate: When the margins of leaves overlap but not in any specific sequence. The petals of imbricate flowers are not arranged in a single whorl.
• Quincuncial: The flower leaves are spirally arranged rather than in a whorl. The first and second leaves are external, the third is partly exterior, and the fourth and fifth leaves are internal. 
• Vexillary: This papilionaceous corolla is characteristic aestivation. The coupled anterior carina overlaps the posterior vexillum, overlapping the two alae.

Reproductive Parts of the Flower

The plant’s reproductive parts are mostly present at the centre of the flower as they are required to be protected from external damage like mechanical abrasions and animals. Flowers consist of a male reproductive part called the androecium, and a female reproductive part called the gynoecium.

Androecium

It is made up of stamens. Stamens are composed of two components–a filament and an anther, which create pollen through meiosis and then spread it. The male reproductive systems of angiosperms are stamens. They are made up of an anther, where pollen develops, and a rod filament, which transports nutrients and water to the anther and arranges it to promote pollen dispersion in most species. 

Gynoecium

The gynoecium appears as a carpel or a clump of fused carpels in the flower’s central area.  Following fertilisation, the gynoecium matures into a fruit that protects and nourishes the developing seeds and assists in their distribution. There are various specialised tissues in the gynoecium.  A group of pistils is called carpels. The gynoecium can have one or many pistils. One or more carpels may be glued together in a pistil (fused). There are three elements to carpels and pistils: a stigma is the sticky apex of the pistil is the pollen receptor, a style, and an ovary. The stigma, style, and ovary of a pistil can be formed of elements from multiple carpels that have been fused. Plant ovaries, like animal ovaries, are portions of the gynoecium that hold ovules. In general, the style is a rod-like structure located between the ovary and the stigma at the bottom of the ovary. There are no styles in the pistils of some plants. The pollen receptor at the apex of the carpel is known as the stigma. Stigmas can exist separately or in a region known as the stigmatic region. 

Conclusion

The flower is the plant’s reproductive organ. The plant would not be capable of reproducing without the flower.  Pollination is the process of pollen being transferred from one plant to another by pollinators such as butterflies, wind, or other means. Pollen, formed in the plant’s male reproductive organ or stamen, is introduced to the pistil, which is contained within the female reproductive component, and the process of reproduction occurs. Seeds start developing when fertilisation has occurred. Pollination is an integral element of the life cycle of all plants, from blooming to non-flowering.