Blog Post 7- Audrey Malone

Blog Post #7 - Elena

 How do flowering plants (angiosperms) like our Brassica oleracea plants reproduce?

In plant reproduction for Angiosperms, it is good to identify the male and female part of a flower.  On flowers there are the stamens, the male part, which include the filament and the anthers. The female part of the flower is called the pistil that includes the ovary, stigma and the style. The anthers are a fluffy part of the flower that produced pollen, and the stigma is a sticky part of the flower that is supposed to have pollen stick to it. 
Now pollinators play a big role in plant reproduction because they transport the pollen. Flower petals attract bees or other pollinators to come to it.  When the pollinator lands on the flower it rubs against the stamens, and little pollen grains stick to the pollinator. As that pollinator flies around and lands on another flower some of those mature pollen grains will come off and stick to the stigma. 
The pollen that sticks to the stigma has a tube cell and a generative cell. The tube cell from the pollen grain is released and travels down the pollen tube that is in the pistil of the flower. The tube cell travels down the stigma to the style to the inside area of the ovary. The generative cell then travels down the tube and will divide into two sperm cells.  The sperm cell will them try and target an ovule. Each ovule has potential to develop into a seed if it is fertilized, and has anegg cell and two polar nuclei. Once the sperm cells have found the ovule, one sperm cell will go into the egg cell and create a zygote, while the other will join with he two polar nuclei and develop into an endosperm. This process is called double fertilization. After the egg cell has become fertilized the ovule will develop into a seed, using the endosperm as food for development. 

Blog Post #7 - Alia Latimer

This first picture is of the flower before any of the dissection occoured. This particular flower was procured by the Mickey long center in the Humming Bird garden. The flower is an adaptation for the group of plants known as angiosperms which is the great majority of plants today.

This second picture is of the male reproductive system of this flower.We have peeled back the petals for a clear veiw. The anthers are where pollen and sperm are stored, the pollen being a trait developed long ago so that the need of water for the plants was no longer nessecary. originally the sperm would swim through the water between clumpings of plants, but ultimately couldn't go very far. With pollen there are now multiple ways of transfer.

In the third picture we have opened up to reveal some of the pollen inside. This pollen carrieres the sperm producing cells in contact with the eggs in order to create a seed. This allows the sperm to be carried by wind, not only meaning that it's carried much farther, spreading genetic diversity to a community, but also allowing it to better survivve on land and have to rely less on water.

In the fourth picture we have the stigma, located close to the opening of the flower. They have hairs that trap pollen that will fertilize the egg. To further increase efficiency most stigmas are also cover in a waxy or sticky solution. When Bees or other pollenators go from flower to flower they will land by or on the stigma transferring pollen from other flowers to the flower further helping with genetic diversity. When a bee flies several miles it is introducing plants from all over a neighborhood.

Our fith the picture is of the ovules. This is where the eggs are held and stored to be furtilized by sperm, and then released. You can see the eggs in the picture as well, hapliod cells that will eventually become a new plant. Those eggs become equipt with all they need to grow and thrive into a completely separate plant. Often times they will be carried in fruits because then animals spread them much farther than if they just fell below the original parent plant.

Blog Post #7 - Duaa Khan

Rutaceae are all around the world and mainly are fruit trees. Rutaceae are defined as plants that have flowers and produce seeds. Grapefruit plants are just one species of the 2,070 species classified as Rutaceae. Rutaceae are unique because of the way they reproduce. There are both male and female parts, the male part is called the stamen, and the female part is called the carpel/pistil wich make up the reproductive parts of the broccoli flower. The pistil includes the stigma, style, and ovary. The stigma is where pollen germinates, the style supports the stigma and allows pollen to travel to the ovary, and the ovary contains ovules that can be fertilized to create an embryo. The stamen includes anthers and filaments. Anthers create pollen, and filaments support the anthers. Though nonsexual, petals are also an important part of flowers. Petals function as an attraction for pollinators. Pollinators include bees, hummingbirds, and butterflies. In cross pollination, pollinators transfer pollen from one plant to another. This process is called pollination. Pollen contains male sex cells, also known as gametes which are haploid cells. The pollen lands on the stigma and goes to the ovary by creating a tube in the style. In the ovary, ovules can join with a sperm cell (pollen) to become fertilized. This creates a diploid cell known as an embryo (seed). The ovary then becomes the fruit. This process is known as fertilization.

This is an image of a flower from our broccoli plant. As you can, most of the reproductive parts are visible, even without magnification. You can easily see the anthers, stigma, and the style. The petals are also visible, which help attract pollinators as well as protect the reproductive parts. 

Along with the bright yellow petals, you can clearly see the 6 anthers that are part of the stamen. The stigma and style, which are part of the pistil, are also visible. 

This image shows 6 stamen and a single pistil, but we will only focus on the stamen for now. The stamen is the male reproductive anatomy of angiosperms. It is fairly simple and only has two parts: the filament and the anther. The filament is a slender stalk that supports the anther. The anther is the more important male part. This oval-shaped structure on the end of the filament is where the male gametophyte, known as pollen, is produced.

The photo shows part of the pistil, or female reproductive anatomy, of our broccoli flower. The pistil consists of three parts: stigma, style, and ovary. The ovary is at the base and supports a long, tube-like style. At the end of the style is the stigma, a sticky surface for pollen to land on. This image focuses only on the stigma and style. As the pollen grain germinates on the stigma, it creates a pollen tube through the entire length of the style. The pollen tube grows out of the pollen grain and creates a tunnel from the stigma to the ovary. 

Here you can see the flower with nearly all of its parts stripped away. The stigma and style are still present, but the main focus of the image is on the ovary. The ovary is the larger, base portion of the pistil. The ovary contains many ovules (eggs) which develop into seeds once they are fertilized. With the ovary sliced open, you can see some of the ovules inside, but there is also a more clear one located slightly to the left of the pistil.