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.