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💡 The flower is the factory
A flower is not just for looks. Its whorls are a complete reproductive kit — some parts protect, some attract, and some make and receive the gametes.
What are the parts of a flower?
- A complete flower has four parts — sepals, petals, stamens and pistil .
- Sepals are the outermost green whorl that protect the bud; petals are the coloured, often fragrant parts that attract pollinators.
- The stamen is the male part and the pistil is the female part (Fig. 11.10).
In this Activity, we will explore the parts of a flower by observing and recording the floral parts of different flowers.
- Collect different types of flowers from your surroundings.
- Observe each part carefully, starting from the outer whorl to the inner one.
- Record the presence of the various floral parts in Table 11.1.
- Cut a transverse and a longitudinal section of the ovary and observe it under a dissecting microscope.
- Draw a diagram of the structure you observe and note any other features.
What we observe
Different flowers show different combinations of sepals, petals, stamens and pistil — helping us compare their
floral parts
and functions.
| S. No. | Flower parts | Presence of floral parts in different flowers | Other feature(s) | Guess the function of flower part | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | B | C | D | ||||
| 1 | Sepal | Yes | |||||
| 2 | Petal | Yes | |||||
| 3 | Stamen | No | |||||
| 4 | Pistil | Yes | |||||
What is the stamen?
- The stamen is the male part of the flower.
- It consists of a filament (the stalk) and an anther at its tip.
- The anther produces pollen grains that contain the male gametes.
What is the pistil?
- The pistil is the female part with three subparts — stigma, style and ovary (Fig. 11.11).
- The stigma at the tip is flat and/or sticky to receive pollen; the style is a thin tube connecting stigma to ovary.
- The ovary contains ovules, and each ovule has an egg cell (the female gamete).
