Anthers and Stigmas and Styles, Oh My!

Fertilization of flowering plants, such as Brassica Oleracea, begins with pollinators. Bees, bats, birds, butterflies and other animals that may brush up against plants transfer pollen from one flower to another. When a pollinator touches a flower, sticky pollen found on the anther clings to the creature. Next time that animal touches a flower, the pollen is transferred onto the sticky stigma. Now that the flower has been pollinated it moves onto germination. Each granule of pollen extends a pollen tube down the style, towards the ovary. In the final step of fertilization, the sperm found in pollen travels down the pollen tube and joins with an ovule, or egg, forming a zygote.

This is the male part of the flower. Better known as the stamen.  It contains a stock called filament that  comes up from the base of the flowering and the end of the stock called the anther.This portion of the stamen produces and releases pollen grains, which contain the plant's male gametes.

This is the female reproductive system of a brassica oleracea plant, called a stigma(40x). The stigma contains the style and the ovary. The stigma is sticky at the top, bringing in pollen through the style and down into the ovaries. The pollen can reach the stigma through multiple types of pollination. The pollen either grapes onto various pollinators (as touched on in previous posts, or can be carried off by winds, although the first of the two is much more common.

The image above show anthers surrounding a stigma. They all are part of the same flower. If you are able to see both male and female parts of a flower the, flower is considered ideal. Sometimes in plants that flower, the male and female parts are located on different flowers




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