Fruits and Flowers Parts of a Flower Parts of a Flower

• The female part of the flower is called the pistil. The carpel is the basic unit of the female reproductive organ, and a pistil may consist of one or more carpels. The carpel is composed of a stigma, style, and ovary. The stigma is a sticky tissue at the end of the pistil that is receptive to pollen. Located below the stigma is a rod-shaped middle part called the style and a swollen base (called the ovary) that contains eggs. Once the pollen reaches the stigma, it forms a pollen tube down through the style to the ovary where sperm is deposited.

• The male part of the flower is called the stamen. It is made of the stalk-like filament that holds up the sack-like anther. The anther contains pollen, the grain released by flowers, which contains the sperm. Perfect vs Imperfect Flowers

Perfect flowers have both male (stamen) and female (pistil) parts in the same flower.

Imperfect flowers have either the male or the female sex organs but not both on the same flower. Cucumbers Cucumbers produce separate male and female flowers on each plant. Tomatoes Having both male and female parts, tomato plants can pollinate themselves. While getting help from bees is common, normally pollen from the anther of one flower is transferred to the stigma of the same flower. Watermelon It is easy to identify the female watermelon flowers because of the large ovary at the flower’s base which later develops into a mature fruit. Borage The borage plant produces mild cucumber tasting edible flowers that contains both the pistil and the stamen. Broccoli When eating broccoli, we eat the flower buds before the plant blooms. When the broccoli flowers open, they each have petals, stamen, stigma, pistil, ovule and pollen. Sunflower The center of each sunflower contains both the stamen and the pistil. Sunflowers rely on bees and other insects to help move pollen around the head of each flower. Squash Squash produces separate male and female flowers on each plant. Snap Peas Self-pollination in Snap Peas occur when the flowers are closed and pollen from the plants fall on the female ovary of the same plant, and this happens before the flowers open. Peppers Each pepper flower contains both the pistil and stamen and are self-pollinating. Peppers grown in places where wind does not move the pollen on the flowers or peppers growing where the humidity is high enough to make the pollen too heavy to move could benefit from pollinators. Nasturtium Nasturtiums are edible flowers that can self pollinate because each flower contains both male and female parts. Strawberries In strawberry flowers, the male components, which rings the outside of the flower, must shed the pollen into the flower’s center. Although strawberry flowers can self pollinate, they love getting help from bees.