The Pistil is the part of the flower made up of one or more carpels. Wildflowers A flower is the reproductive organ of those plants classified as angiosperms (flowering plants; Division Magnoliophyta). ... A carpel is the female reproductive organ of a flower; the basic unit of the gynoecium. ...
pistil [pis´til] Pronunciation Key, one of the four basic parts of a flower, the central structure around which are arranged the stamens, the petals, and the sepals.
A flower that has one or more pistils but no stamens (or nonfunctional ones) is called pistillate, or female, as distinguished from a staminate, or male, flower, in which the pistil is nonfunctional or absent.
An example of a simple carpel is that of a pea or bean : the fruit develops from the single carpel consisting of two rows of ovules aligned beside one another along the placental margin.
The union of two or more carpels ( syncarpy) may be observable as part of the ontogeny (flower development) or the compound pistil may simply develop as a unit structure (a congenitally fused pistil) to be interpreted as an aspect of the phylogeny (evolutionary history).
A complicating factor in all of this is the fact that in some species syncarpy is present only at the base of the carpels, the pistil being apocarpous in the upper part.
Feeds |
Contact