In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants that is formed from the ovary after flowering.
Rambutan is a medium-sized tropical tree in the family Sapindaceae. The name also refers to the edible fruit produced by this tree. The rambutan is native to Southeast Asia. It is closely related to several other edible tropical fruits including the lychee, longan, pulasan, and quenepa.
Pollination is the transfer of pollen from an anther of a plant to the stigma of a plant, later enabling fertilisation and the production of seeds, most often by an animal or by wind. Pollinating agents can be animals such as insects, birds, and bats; water; wind; and even plants themselves, when self-pollination occurs within a closed flower. Pollination often occurs within a species. When pollination occurs between species, it can produce hybrid offspring in nature and in plant breeding work.
Geraniaceae is a family of flowering plants placed in the order Geraniales. The family name is derived from the genus Geranium. The family includes both the genus Geranium and the garden plants called geraniums, which modern botany classifies as genus Pelargonium, along with other related genera.
Pollination of fruit trees is required to produce seeds with surrounding fruit. It is the process of moving pollen from the anther to the stigma, either in the same flower or in another flower. Some tree species, including many fruit trees, do not produce fruit from self-pollination, so pollinizer trees are planted in orchards.
In botany and horticulture, parthenocarpy is the natural or artificially induced production of fruit without fertilisation of ovules, which makes the fruit seedless. The phenomenon has been observed since ancient times but was first scientifically described by German botanist Fritz Noll in 1902.
Plant reproductive morphology is the study of the physical form and structure of those parts of plants directly or indirectly concerned with sexual reproduction.
Heterostyly is a unique form of polymorphism and herkogamy in flowers. In a heterostylous species, two or three morphological types of flowers, termed "morphs", exist in the population. On each individual plant, all flowers share the same morph. The flower morphs differ in the lengths of the pistil and stamens, and these traits are not continuous. The morph phenotype is genetically linked to genes responsible for a unique system of self-incompatibility, termed heteromorphic self-incompatibility, that is, the pollen from a flower on one morph cannot fertilize another flower of the same morph.
Sequential hermaphroditism is one of the two types of hermaphroditism, the other type being simultaneous hermaphroditism. It occurs when the organism's sex changes at some point in its life. In particular, a sequential hermaphrodite produces eggs and sperm at different stages in life. Sequential hermaphroditism occurs in many fish, gastropods, and plants. Species that can undergo these changes do so as a normal event within their reproductive cycle, usually cued by either social structure or the achievement of a certain age or size. In some species of fish, sequential hermaphroditism is much more common than simultaneous hermaphroditism.
Couroupita guianensis, known by a variety of common names including cannonball tree, is a deciduous tree in the flowering plant family Lecythidaceae. It is native to the tropical forests of Central and South America, and it is cultivated in many other tropical areas throughout the world because of its beautiful, fragrant flowers and large, interesting fruits. Fruits are brownish grey. There are potential medicinal uses for many parts of Couroupita guianensis, and the tree has cultural and religious significance in India. In Sri Lanka, the cannonball tree has been widely misidentified as Sal, after its introduction to the island by the British in 1881, and has been included as a common item in Buddhist temples as a result.
In the flowering plants, an ovary is a part of the female reproductive organ of the flower or gynoecium. Specifically, it is the part of the pistil which holds the ovule(s) and is located above or below or at the point of connection with the base of the petals and sepals. The pistil may be made up of one carpel or of several fused carpels, and therefore the ovary can contain part of one carpel or parts of several fused carpels. Above the ovary is the style and the stigma, which is where the pollen lands and germinates to grow down through the style to the ovary, and, for each individual pollen grain, to fertilize one individual ovule. Some wind pollinated flowers have much reduced and modified ovaries.
Allogamy or cross-fertilization is the fertilization of an ovum from one individual with the spermatozoa of another. By contrast, autogamy is the term used for self-fertilization. In humans, the fertilization event is an instance of allogamy. Self-fertilization occurs in hermaphroditic organisms where the two gametes fused in fertilization come from the same individual. This is common in plants and certain protozoans.
Eupomatia is a genus of three flowering shrub species of the Australian continent, constituting the only genus in the ancient family Eupomatiaceae. The Eupomatiaceae have been recognised by most taxonomists and classified in the plant order Magnoliales. The three species of shrubs or small trees grow naturally in the rainforests and humid eucalypt forests of eastern Australia and New Guinea. The type species Eupomatia laurina was described in 1814 by Robert Brown.
A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants. Flowers produce gametophytes, which in flowering plants consist of a few haploid cells which produce gametes. The "male" gametophyte, which produces non-motile sperm, is enclosed within pollen grains; the "female" gametophyte is contained within the ovule. When pollen from the anther of a flower is deposited on the stigma, this is called pollination. Some flowers may self-pollinate, producing seed using pollen from the same flower or a different flower of the same plant, but others have mechanisms to prevent self-pollination and rely on cross-pollination, when pollen is transferred from the anther of one flower to the stigma of another flower on a different individual of the same species.
Dicentra cucullaria, Dutchman's britches, or Dutchman's breeches, is a perennial herbaceous plant, native to rich woods of eastern North America, with a disjunct population in the Columbia Basin.
Plant reproduction is the production of new offspring in plants, which can be accomplished by sexual or asexual reproduction. Sexual reproduction produces offspring by the fusion of gametes, resulting in offspring genetically different from either parent. Asexual reproduction produces new individuals without the fusion of gametes, resulting in clonal plants that are genetically identical to the parent plant and each other, unless mutations occur.
This page provides a glossary of plant morphology. Botanists and other biologists who study plant morphology use a number of different terms to classify and identify plant organs and parts that can be observed using no more than a handheld magnifying lens. This page provides help in understanding the numerous other pages describing plants by their various taxa. The accompanying page—Plant morphology—provides an overview of the science of the external form of plants. There is also an alphabetical list: Glossary of botanical terms. In contrast, this page deals with botanical terms in a systematic manner, with some illustrations, and organized by plant anatomy and function in plant physiology.
Papilionaceous flowers are flowers with the characteristic irregular and butterfly-like corolla found in many, though not all, plants of the species-rich Faboideae subfamily of legumes. Tournefort suggested that the term Flores papilionacei originated with Valerius Cordus, who applied it to the flowers of the bean.
Sexual selection is described as natural selection arising through preference by one sex for certain characteristics in individuals of the other sex. Sexual selection is a common concept in animal evolution but, with plants, it is oftentimes overlooked because many plants are hermaphrodites. Flowering plants show many characteristics that are often sexually selected for. For example, flower symmetry, nectar production, floral structure, and inflorescences are just a few of the many secondary sex characteristics acted upon by sexual selection. Sexual dimorphisms and reproductive organs can also be affected by sexual selection in flowering plants.
Wisconsin Fast Plants is the registered trademark for a cultivar of Brassica rapa, developed as a rapid life-cycle model organism for research and teaching. Wisconsin Fast Plants are a member of the Brassicaceae family, closely related to the turnip and bok choy. Wisconsin Fast Plants were developed in accordance with an ideotype for an ideal model organism to be used in expediting plant research. Similarly, their rapid life cycle and other model organism characteristics made them easy to grow in large numbers in classrooms. For the last few decades they have been grown in classrooms and laboratories around the world.
