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Flower tutorials - 15 - classification

Classification according to the Morphology

According to Corolla
1. Sympetalous.
2. Polypetalous.
3. Actinomorphic

Classification Based on the position
1. Terminal
2. Axillary

Classification based on Flower Branches, Clusters, and Inflorences
1. Single Flower
2. Cluster
3. Inflorescence, Racemose Inflorescences & Cymose Inflorescences.

Classification Based on Blossom
1. Annual flowers
2. Perennials
2. Biennial flowers

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Flower tutorials - 14 - Flowers & emotions

For more than 5000 years, people have cultivated flowers although there is no known reward for this activity. Studies show that
flowers are a powerful positive emotion “inducer”. flowers, upon
presentation to women, always elicited the Duchenne or true smile. Women who received flowers reported more positive moods 3 days later. A flower
given to men or women in an elevator elicited more positive social behavior than other stimuli. flowers presented to elderly participants (55+ age) elicited positive mood reports and improved episodic memory. Flowers have immediate and long-term effects on emotional reactions, mood, social behaviors and even memory for both males and females.

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Flower tutorials - 13 - usage of flowers

People have sought ways to cultivate, buy, wear, or otherwise be around flowers and blooming plants, partly because of their agreeable appearance and smell. Around the world, people use flowers for a wide range of events and functions that, cumulatively, encompass one's lifetime:

* For new births or Christenings
* As a corsage or boutonniere to be worn at social functions or for holidays
* As tokens of love or esteem
* For wedding flowers for the bridal party, and decorations for the hall
* As brightening decorations within the home
* As a gift of remembrance for bon voyage parties, welcome home parties, and "thinking of you" gifts
* For funeral flowers and expressions of sympathy for the grieving
* For worshiping goddesses. in Hindu culture it is very common to bring flowers as a gift to temples.

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Flower tutorials - 12 - Symbolic meaning

Many flowers have important symbolic meanings in various cultures. The practice of assigning meanings to flowers is known as floriography. Some of the more common examples include:
* Red roses - love, beauty, and passion.
* Poppies - consolation in time of death.
* Red poppies - In the UK, New Zealand, Australia and Canada are worn to commemorate soldiers who have died in times of war.
* Irises/Lily - burials as a symbol referring to "resurrection/life".
* Daisies - innocence.

In Hindu mythology, flowers have a significant status. Vishnu, one of the three major gods in the Hindu deities, is often depicted standing straight on a lotus flower. Apart from the association with Vishnu, the Hindu tradition also considers the lotus to have spiritual significance. For example, it figures in the Hindu stories of creation.

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Flower tutorials - 11 - Fertilization & dispersal

Some flowers with both stamens and a pistil are capable of self-fertilization, which does increase the chance of producing seeds but limits genetic variation. The extreme case of self-fertilization occurs in flowers that always self-fertilize, such as many dandelions. Conversely, many species of plants have ways of preventing self-fertilization. Unisexual male and female flowers on the same plant may not appear or mature at the same time, or pollen from the same plant may be incapable of fertilizing its ovules. The latter flower types, which have chemical barriers to their own pollen, are referred to as self-sterile or self-incompatible (see also: Plant sexuality).

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Flower tutorials - 10 - Flowers & pollinators

Many flowers have close relationships with one or a few specific pollinating organisms. Many flowers, for example, attract only one specific species of insect, and therefore rely on that insect for successful reproduction. This close relationship is often given as an example of coevolution, as the flower and pollinator are thought to have developed together over a long period of time to match each other's needs.

This close relationship compounds the negative effects of extinction. The extinction of either member in such a relationship would mean almost certain extinction of the other member as well. Some endangered plant species are so because of shrinking pollinator populations.

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Flower tutorials - 09 - Pollination mechanism

The pollination methods employed by a plant depends on what method of pollination is utilized. Most flowers can be divided between two broad groups of pollination methods:

Entomophilous: flowers attract and use insects, bats, birds or other animals to transfer pollen from one flower to the next.

Anemophilous: flowers use the wind to move pollen from one flower to the next, examples include the grasses, Birch trees, Ragweed and Maples.

Some flowers are self pollinated and use flowers that never open or are self pollinated before the flowers open, these flowers are called cleistogamous.

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Flower tutorials - 08 - Attraction methods

As plants can not move from one location to another, many flowers have evolved to attract animals to transfer pollen between individual plants. Flowers that are insect-pollinated are called entomophilous; literally "insect-loving" in Latin. Flowers commonly have glands called nectaries on various parts that attract animals looking for nutritious nectar. Birds and bees have color vision, enabling them to seek out "colorful" flowers. Some flowers have patterns, called nectar guides, that show pollinators where to look for nectar; they may be visible only under ultraviolet light, which is visible to bees and some other insects. Flowers also attract pollinators by scent and some of those scents are pleasant to our sense of smell. Not all flower scents are appealing to humans, a number of flowers are pollinated by insects that are attracted to rotten flesh and have flowers that smell like dead animals, often called Carrion flowers including Rafflesia, the titan arum, and the North American pawpaw (Asimina triloba). Flowers pollinated by night visitors, including bats and moths, are likely to concentrate on scent to attract pollinators and most such flowers are white.

Still other flowers use mimicry to attract pollinators. Some species of orchids, for example, produce flowers resembling female bees in color, shape, and scent. Male bees move from one such flower to another in search of a mate.

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Flower tutorials - 07 - organ development

Molecular control of a floral organ identity determination is fairly well understood. If we consider a simple model, three gene activities interact in a coordinated manner to determine the developmental identities of the organ primordia within the floral meristem. These gene functions are called A, B and C-gene functions. In the first floral whorl only A-genes are expressed, leading to the formation of sepals. In the second whorl both A- and B-genes are expressed, leading to the formation of petals. In the third whorl, B and C genes interact to form stamens and in the center of the flower C-genes alone give rise to carpels. The model is based upon studies of homeotic mutants in Arabidopsis thaliana and snapdragon, Antirrhinum majus. For example, when there is a loss of B-gene function, mutant flowers are produced with sepals in the first whorl as usual, but also in the second whorl instead of the normal petal formation. In the third whorl the lack of B function but presence of C-function mimics the fourth whorl, leading to the formation of carpels also in the third whorl.

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Flower tutorials - 06 - transition phases

The transition to flowering is one of the major changes that a plant makes during its life. The transition process must take place at a time that is favorable for its fertilization and the formation of seeds. This ensures maximal reproductive success. To meet these needs a plant is able to interpret important cues such as changes in levels of plant hormones and seasonable temperature and photoperiod changes. Many perennial and most biennial plants require what is known as vernalization to flower. The molecular interpretation of these signals is through the transmission of a complex signal known as florigen, which involves a variety of genes, including CONSTANS, FLOWERING LOCUS C and FLOWERING LOCUS T. Florigen is produced in the leaves in reproductively favorable conditions and acts in buds and growing tips to induce a number of different physiological and morphological changes.

The first step in this process is the transformation of the vegetative stem primordia into floral primordia. This occurs as biochemical changes take place to change cellular differentiation of leaf, bud and stem tissues into tissue that will grow into the reproductive organs. Growth of the central part of the stem tip stops or flattens out and the sides develop protuberances in a whorled or spiral fashion around the outside of the stem end. These protuberances develop into the sepals, petals, stamens, and carpels. Once this process begins, in most plants, it cannot be reversed and the stems develop flowers, even if the initial start of the flower formation event was dependent of some environmental cue. Once the process begins, even if that cue is removed the stem will continue to develop a flower.

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Flower tutorials - 05 - Formula

A floral formula is a way to represent the structure of a flower using letters, numbers, and symbols which are specific. Typically, a general formula will be used to represent the flower structure of a plant family rather than a particular species. The following representations are used:

Ca = calyx (sepal whorl; e. g. Ca5 = 5 sepals)
Co = corolla (petal whorl; e. g., Co3(x) = petals some multiple of three )
Z = add if zygomorphic (e. g., CoZ6 = zygomorphic with 6 petals)
A = androecium (whorl of stamens; e. g., A∞ = many stamens)
G = gynoecium (carpel or carpels; e. g., G1 = monocarpous)

x: to represent a "variable number"
∞: to represent "many"

A floral formula would appear something like this:

Ca(power 5) Co(power 5) A (power 100 - ∞G (power 1)

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Flower tutorials - 04 - Morphology

Flowering plants are called heterosporangiate, which means that they produce two types of reproductive spores. The pollen (called male spores) and ovules (called as female spores) are produced in different organs. But a typical flower is called as a bisporangiate strobilus in because it contains both organs.

A flower is regarded as a modified stem with shortened internodes and bearing. at its nodes there as structures that may be highly modified leaves. In actual essence, the structure of a flower forms on a modified shoot or axis with an apical meristem. This does not grow continuously (meaning that growth is determinate). Flowers may be attached to the plant in a few ways. If the flower has no stem but forms in the axil of a leaf, it is called sessile. When one flower is produced, the stem holding the flower is called a peduncle. If the peduncle ends with groups of flowers, each stem that holds a flower is called a pedicel. The flowering stem forms a terminal end which is called the torus or receptacle. The parts of a flower are arranged in whorls on the torus.

The four main parts or whorls (starting from the base of the flower or lowest node and working upwards) are as follows:

* Calyx: the outer whorl of sepals; typically these are green, but are petal-like in some species.
* Corolla: the whorl of petals, which are usually thin, soft and colored to attract animals that help the process of pollination. The coloration may extend into the ultraviolet, which is visible to the compound eyes of insects, but not to the eyes of birds.
* Androecium (from Greek andros oikia: man's house): one or two whorls of stamens, each a filament topped by an anther where pollen is produced. Pollen contains the male gametes.
* Gynoecium (from Greek gynaikos oikia: woman's house): one or more pistils. The female reproductive organ is the carpel: this contains an ovary with ovules (which contain female gametes). A pistil may consist of a number of carpels merged together, in which case there is only one pistil to each flower, or of a single individual carpel (the flower is then called apocarpous). The sticky tip of the pistil, the stigma, is the receptor of pollen. The supportive stalk, the style becomes the pathway for pollen tubes to grow from pollen grains adhering to the stigma, to the ovules, carrying the reproductive material.

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Flower tutorials - 03 - pollination

transfer of pollen from the anther to the stigma of a plant. Pollination is the process by which pollen is transferred in plants, thereby enabling fertilization and sexual reproduction. ...pollinator - an insect that carries pollen from one flower to another. The study of pollination brings together many disciplines, such as botany, horticulture, entomology, and ecology. The pollination process as an interaction between flower and vector was first addressed in the 18th century by Christian Konrad Sprengel. It is important in horticulture and agriculture, because fruiting is dependent on fertilisation, which is the end result of pollination.

Pollination can be accomplished by cross-pollination or by self-pollination.

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Flower tutorials - 02 - fertilization methods

Flowering plants usually face pressure to optimise the pollen transfer between plants and this is typically reflected in the morphology of the flowers along with the behaviour of plants. Pollen may be transferred between plants through a number of methods. Some plants make use of abiotic mediums such as wind or water. Others use biotic methods like insects, birds, bats or other animals. Some plants make use of multiple mediums too.

Cleistogamous flowers pollinate them selves, after which they may or may not open. Many flower species like Viola and some species like Salvia are known to have these types of flowers.

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Flower tutorials - 01

A flower is the reproductive portion found in flowering plants. The biological function of a flower is to act as an intermediary for the union of male sperm with female ovum in order to produce seeds. The process begins with what is known as pollination, which is followed by fertilization, and then leading to the formation and dispersal of the seeds. For the higher plants, seeds are their next generation, and serve as the primary means by which single instances of a species are dispersed across the local landscape.

In addition to serving as the reproductive organs, flowers have long been admired and used by humans, mainly not just to make their environment appealing but also as a source of food.

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