What Is the Purpose of a Flower on a Plant?

A rose by another name might not smell as sweet but it would still be a flower. We grow and give them as a sign of affection. Their importance to the plants they grow on, though, is anything but casual.

Identification

Flowering plants are angiosperms. They reproduce from seed that develops in an ovary. Flowers enclose the ovaries.

Function

Flowers contain reproductive organs that produce offspring and continue the species. The flower's bright color attracts insects that feed on the pollen in its center, track around in it and then carry pollen to other flowers to fertilize their eggs.

Benefits

Flowers may be insignificant forebears of fruit, provide a show followed by a seed pod or contain the seeds themselves.

Time Frame

Most plants set flowers and produce seeds annually. But some flowers only produce every few years. All have adapted to flower when offspring will have the best chance of success.

Significance

Angiosperms are the most widespread form of land plants, meaning that they have been remarkably successful in producing succeeding generations.

Fun Fact

A "signal gene" in the leaves, not the stem, controls the flowering time of plants--a discovery predicted by a Russian botanist in the 1930s and not confirmed until 2005.

Resources

• Meaning of flowers