What’s inside of a flower? Flower anatomy is a little more complicated than you might expect!

On today’s episode, we learn the names of the parts and then dissect a cactus flower. Try this at home! (Except probably not with a cactus.)

VOCABULARY: People who study flowers think about flower anatomy (the parts of a flower) in four WHORLS, or circles-inside-of-circles. We talked about flower parts from the outside in. First, the very outside whorl is made up of the SEPALS. These are the parts of a flower that protect the flower before it opens. Think about a rosebud: the kind of leafy green parts that cover the bud are the sepals. Moving inward, next we have the PETALS, which are often colorful and smell nice. Then, we get to the reproductive parts of the flower – these are the parts that will eventually make seeds. Flowers can be PERFECT, with both male and female parts (I recommend you dissect a perfect flower). Flowers can also be IMPERFECT, with either male or female parts. In a perfect flower, the next whorl is the STAMENS. These are the male parts of a flower, made up of a stalk, called a FILAMENT, holding up an ANTHER, which holds the pollen. More on this next week. Finally, the inner whorl of a perfect flower is the PISTIL, or the female part of the flower. The pistil is made of of three parts: a sticky STIGMA on top, a long STYLE, and an OVARY at the base. The ovary contains OVULES, which you can think of as pre-seeds. Something has to happen for the ovules to become seeds – stay tuned!

RESOURCES: This site has nicely labeled images of the flower parts: https://k8schoollessons.com/parts-of-…

Feeling confident? Try labeling your own flower with this worksheet (this links to a pdf): https://askabiologist.asu.edu/sites/d…

This production is brought to you by the University of Arizona’s Community and School Garden Program, and of course, Penny. Thanks to the Thomas R. Brown Foundation, Cox Communications, and the Roche Foundation for their support.