Anthers and Stigmas and Styles, Oh My!

Yesterday I dissected a flower from our broccoli plant do figure how the plant and others like reproduce. Throughout the dissection, I got to see each part of the flower that plays an important role in the production.

In order for the plant to reproduce, it needs to combine male gametophytes (pollen)  with female gametophytes. The photo above is an anther which is the producer of pollen. Meiosis occurs in the anther, which in a flower produces haploid male pollen grains.

In the photo above is part of a carpel, the stigma and style. The carpel is the female part of the flower. The stigma is the roundish tip at the end. The stigma is the location of pollination. It is when a grain of pollen lands on the stigma. The style is the long tube that connects the stigma to the ovary when pollination is over, pollen grains will produce pollen tubes. These grow down the style toward the ovary, where they then release sperm cells

The photo above is a photo of the bottom of the carpel, the ovary. Within the ovary there are small little ovules. The ovary is where the female gametophytes are produced.

 Now that I have covered all of the main components of the flower reproductive system, we can now talk about it happens. The flower is an angiosperm, which mean the reproductive system happens within the flower. It starts when a mature plant produces a flower. The flower now contains all of the things we discussed earlier. It has the male anatomy, the anthers, and the female anatomy, the carpel. The carpel is surrounded by the anthers, which makes a easy transfer of the male. Inside each of the anthers, every cell goes through meiosis which produces four haploid cells, also known as spores. One spore cell is the same as one grain of pollen. Pollen grains make up the entire male gametophytes, and they will keep growing until they are released and transferred to the stigma. Inside of the ovary of the flower, ovules develop into eight nuclei through a series of divisions. These nuclei and their surrounding membrane create the embryo sac. The embryo sac contains a female gamete, or the egg cell. After the pollen tubes enter the stigma, they access the embryo sac When this happens it creates a zygote which is a fertile egg and the process is repeated