Parts of a Flower

Parts of a Flower The flower is the reproductive part of a plant.

The flower is the reproductive part of a plant. The parts of a flower include sepals, petals, stamen and pistil. The hard, leaf-like structures around the base of a flower are called its sepals. They protect the bud before it blooms into a flower. The sepals are collectively called the calyx. The number of sepals varies from plant to plant. The brightly coloured portions of a flower that attract insects and birds for pollination are called petals. Like sepals, the number of petals also varies from plant to plant. The petals are collectively called the corolla. In some flowers, the petals and sepals combine to form a round shape, which is called the tepal. The stamens and the pistil are the reproductive parts of a flower. The stamen is the male reproductive part of a flower. The small tube with a little bulge at the end of a stamen is called the filament. The filament has a yellow sac called the anther. This yellow sac contains pollen grains, which contain male reproductive cells.

Like sepals and petals, every flowering plant differs in the number of stamens, too. The female reproductive part of a flower is the pistil. It consists of three parts – the stigma, the style and the ovary. The upper end of the pistil is called the stigma, where pollen grains get deposited and enter the pistil. The narrow tubular part is called the style, which connects the stigma to the lower part of the pistil. The lower bulgy part of the pistil is called the ovary. It contains ovules. The ovary can be cut longitudinally or transversely to see the female reproductive cells, ovules, which appear as bead-like structures. The number and arrangement of ovules differ in different flowering plants. Like the stamens, the number of pistils also varies from flower to flower.