Blog post #10 (Connor)

Anthers and stigmas and styles, oh my!

                  Plants go through a very specific reproduction process. Pollen cones, or male cones, produce pollen grains which divide to produce two sperm nuclei. Seed cones however, are the female part of the plant. They have ovules which produce haploid cells that grow and mature into large egg cells. The sperm nuclei are spread in the spring, and are caught by the pollination drops on seed cones. The sperm grows a structure called a pollen tube that reaches and fertilizes the eggs of a plant. Anew embryo is formed, and it becomes a germinated seed, then a seedling, and it then eventually grows into another plant.

This is the female part of the plant, also known as the carpel. It consists of a sticky tip called a stigma which traps pollen. The other part is the stalk, or the style.

This is a picture of all the anthers surrounding the stigma. They are all part of the same plant, which makes this plant perfect. As it has both male and female parts.

The green bead like pieces of this picture are the ovules, and they are contained by the ovary (the green stalk).

This is the male part of the flower, also known as the stamen. It has a stalk called a filament, but this picture focuses on the anther (or the curvy part on the end) instead. The anther produces pollen that contains the plants gametes, or sperm.