Pistil - what is it? Detailed analysis of the structure and purpose of the pestle

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:43

The flower is the most amazing part of most representatives of the flora, which has various options for shape, aroma and color. But how is it that flowers reproduce? Each flower has stamens and a pistil - these are its reproductive organs.

What is the pestle made of?

Pistil is an element of a bud, consisting of many carpels. Some plant species may have more than one pistil, but 2 or more.

Its lower part is usually swollen, dense and is called the ovary, which smoothly passes into a narrower style and stigma. There are also species, such as poppies, in which there is no style in the pistil, and the ovary immediately passes into the stigma. The upper part of the pistil is designed to trap pollen during pollination, so the shape of the stigma is different - star-shaped, filiform, lobed, pinnate. The height of the style depends on the ability of the stigma to recognize and capture pollen grains.

Where do seeds come from?

The pestle is the repository of seeds. Future seeds in the form of ovules are stored in the ovary of the pistil. In the process of pollination, pollen moves along the column deep into the ovary, seeds are formed, and the ovary itselfturns into fruit. That is why it is considered the most important part of the flower.

All flowers are divided into bisexual, same-sex female and same-sex male. The bisexual family includes rye, peas and cherries. Same-sex female plants have no stamens in the bud, while same-sex male plants have a pistil. Among the same-sex one can find cucumber, sea buckthorn, poplar. The flowers of these plants can be part male and part female.

How are flowers pollinated?

If everything is clear with bisexual plants, they reproduce in the process of self-pollination, then with same-sex plants everything is much more complicated. More often, male and female buds grow on the same plant (tree, shrub). Without the help of insects, pollen is transferred from the male flowers to the female pistil. These are pumpkin crops, hazel and cucumbers. Dioecious are those plants in which shrubs with male and female flowers grow separately. Most of them are representatives of urban flora (aspen, poplar, nettle, dandelion and willow).

Answering the question: "A pistil is what: a vital organ of a flower or an accompanying element of the evolutionary process?", we can conclude that pollination is impossible without a pistil in principle. But the evolutionary division of plants into male and female brings certain inconveniences to a person's life, for example, with poplar fluff - with its help, seeds from a male tree fall on the seeds of a female one.