Flower
A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants (plants of the division Magnoliophyta, also called angiosperms). The biological function of a flower is to effect reproduction, usually by providing a mechanism for the union of sperm with eggs. Flowers may facilitate outcrossing (fusion of sperm and eggs from different individuals in a population) or allow selfing (fusion of sperm and egg from the same flower). Some flowers produce diaspores without fertilization (parthenocarpy). Flowers contain sporangia and are the site where gametophytes develop. Flowers give rise to fruit and seeds. Many flowers have evolved to be attractive to animals, so as to cause them to be vectors for the transfer of pollen.
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Famous quotes containing the word flower:
“Well, if it isn’t Aurora Ratchett, goddess of the dawn, a sight for sore eyes.... I always think of Ebenezer Pritchett, the day he led that last charge at Shiloh. There was a gallant trooper, your father. You know, there went a man of quality. There went the flower of the South.”
—Laurence Stallings (1894–1968)
““Fenced early in this cloistral round
Of reverie, of shade, of prayer,
How should we grow in other ground?
How can we flower in foreign air?
MPass, banners, pass, and bugles, cease;
And leave our desert to its peace!””
—Matthew Arnold (1822–1888)
“Great speeches have always had great soundbites. The problem now is that the young technicians who put together speeches are paying attention only to the soundbite, not to the text as a whole, not realizing that all great soundbites happen by accident, which is to say, all great soundbites are yielded up inevitably, as part of the natural expression of the text. They are part of the tapestry, they aren’t a little flower somebody sewed on.”
—Peggy Noonan (b. 1950)