Blog Post #10: Anthers and Stigmas and Styles, Oh My!

This week I dissected a flower in my biology class. During the dissection I got to observe the different parts of the flower up close. I got to see the male’s parts called the anthers and the female’s parts called the stigma, style and ovaries. The pictures shown below are some of the parts I got to observe under the microscope.

This is the carpel. The mushroom like head is called the stigma and its shaft is the style.

This image shows the anther, the male part of the flower where the pollen grains are produced.

This is the ovary where the fertile female cells are held. the capsules or ovules hold these female cells.

Now that you have seen what the plant’s parts look like, here is how they work. First off, flowers are angiosperms, which means that they reproduce within themselves. Every flower has both the male and female parts required to reproduce.The male part of the plant(Stamen) creates pollen which contains the plant's sperm cells. The pollen will eventually find its way onto the female part(Carpel) of the same or different plant species. The pollen can be distributed by insects such as as bees or by wind and animals. When the pollen is transferred to the stigma of another plant, the ovules will be fertilized inside the plant’s ovaries.

Post 10 Anthers and Stigmas and Styles, Oh my!

  

Raw un-cut broccoli flower.

              Side view of the ,anthers ,stigma ,style ,and stamen.
                                                  

This is the ovary which contain seed like ovules.

                                           

The carpel is located below.

   The production of a new plant is fascinating, but to realize the complexity, a understanding of the functions and cycles of these parts are necessary. They consist of as listed;Released from the stamen, Tiny pollen particles make a cross country journey on pollinators such as bees, and bats to reach another plants stigma.Once the pollen particles reach the stigma, they slide down the style and make their way into the ovary. The pollen then fertilizes four haploid cells and creates a combined ovum.Depending on the plant this may result in spores or seeds.

Blog Post #10, Anthers and stigmas and styles, Oh My!

 
Anthers and stigmas and styles, oh my!

This is a picture of the plant before we started to dissecting it for 

for scientific reasons.

 

This is a picture of a group of Anthers surrounding the stigma.The anther is connected to the Filament and together they make up the stamen. The Stigma is connected to the style  which is connected to the ovary.  They are all part of a prefect flower because the flower has both female and male parts.

 

This picture of the carpel the top is the Stigma, in the middle is the style than the ovary. This flower has more than one ovule. In the ovule is where female gametes are produced.

The stigma at the top of the Carpel, and is sticky. The stigma is where pollen grain frequently lands. Some flowers have several Carpel mixed together to from a single reproduction structure known as a compound Carpel.

Fertilization/Meiosis

First a pollen grain has to land near an Ovule. The grain will than split and grow a pollen tube with two haploid sperm nuclei. When the Pollen tube reaches the female gametophyte one sperm fertilizes the egg. Then fertilization produces a diploid Zygote (new plant). The Zygote turns into an embryo, then it will encase into a seed. The seed has three generation of the life cycle. The seed has three generation of the life cycle. The Seed Coat is part of the older generation, the haploid cell in the embryo is part of the female gametophyte, and the embryo in the new plant.

Blog Post #10 Anthers and Stigmas and Styles, Oh My!

As I examined broccoli flowers from the Brassica Oleracea, I noticed that the ovary is located at the base of the stigma, surrounded by the sepal. As a whole, the female reproductive system is called carpel. For the male reproductive system, pollen is stored at the top of the anther. When the stamen releases the pollen grains on the anther, each individual pollen grain produces four haploid spore cells and the walls of the pollen grain strengthen to prevent dryness until it sticks to the stigma of another plant. The pollen is then taken down the style and into the ovary, where every ovule produces four haploid cells that cohere with the four haploid cells of the pollen grains. A zygote is then formed  which will then be deposited into the soil to spring up a new sporophyte plant! Here are some pictures below to help you better understand what these complex reproductive organs look like.

Here is a photo of the whole broccoli flower, with the reproductive parts inside.

 This photo clearly highlights the male anthers on the stamen, and the stigma which is connected to the style.

Only the carpel is shown here connecting the style above.

These are the single ovules found inside the ovary.

The pollen grains are shown here, where the male haploid cells are located.