1. Flowers are reproduction centers for plants, and usually carry both female and male reproduction parts.

Few things are more beautiful to see and smell than flowers. Fragrance and color attract pollinators--animals, like birds, or insects--to the plant to spread its pollen. Each part of a flower is responsible for helping the plant reproduce itself, or protecting the flower bud until it's fully developed and able to reproduce. Flowers have both essential and accessory parts.

Essential Reproductive Parts--Male

A lily's anthers, holding pollen.

As a plant's reproduction center, a flower usually contains both a "stamen," which is the male flower part, and the "pistil," the female flower part, plus accessory parts such as sepals, calyx, petals and nectar glands. The stamen consists of paired anthers on filaments. Anthers are sacs filled with pollen. Filaments are long, thin stalks that sit in the middle of the flower. Each filament holds an anther up into the air, making the pollen available to wind, insects or animals, such as birds. Anthers have yellow, gold or brownish powder on them, which is pollen. Each plant has several stamens. Pollen sacs release their pollen onto the outside of the anthers, which are then brushed against by insects when they enter and move around in the flowers.

Essential Reproductive Parts--Female

This flower's stigma can clearly be seen.

The pistil, a flower's female part, looks like a tube, is located in the very center of the flower and extends farther out than do the anthers. A pistil has three parts: a stigma, style and ovary. The stigma is the sticky surface at the top of the pistil. Pollen sticks to the sticky surface. A tube-like structure that holds up the stigma is the style. The style leads down to the ovary, containing the ovules. The ovary contains eggs, which are inside ovules. If an egg is fertilized--this happens when pollen reaches it--the ovule develops into a seed.

Accessory Parts--Sepals and Calyx

These buds have sepals and calyx protecting them.

Accessory parts of a flower are those not directly involved in reproduction. Sepals are green, leaflike structures that enclose a developing flower bud, to protect it until the flower is fully developed. The calyx is what the sepals collectively are called. The calyx protects the flower before it opens and, after the flower's blossoming, can be seen at its base. Together, the flower's petals (or "corolla") and the calyx make up the "perianth"--the portion of the flower that does not directly assist in reproduction.

Accessory Parts--Petals and Nectary

A pansy's petal markings can help guide bees to its center.

Petals are generally highly colored and perfumed portions of a flower. Petals have scent and color to attract insects or animals that will carry pollen off to other plants. They sometimes also have markings leading to the center of the flower to help insects or birds find their way to where reproductive systems lie. Sitting deeply at the flower's bottom is a "nectary." The nectary creates a sugary solution called "nectar" to help attract insects to the plant.