Describe the life cycle of a flowering plant with a help of neat labelled diagrams.
A.1 Adult plant produces flowers:
- When the plant matures and is ready to reproduce, it develops flowers. Flowers are special structures involved in sexual reproduction, which includes pollination and fertilisation.
2. Pollination: The transfer of pollen grains from the anther of a stamen to the stigma of a carpel is called pollination.
3. Fertilisation:
i) After pollen grains falls on the stigma fertilization occurs when the male gamete present in pollen grains joins with the female gametes present in the ovule.
ii) In the ovary the male gamete of pollen combines with the nucleus of female gamete or egg present to form zygote.
4. Formation of fruit and seed : After fertilisation, a combined cell i.e., zygote grows into an embryo within a seed formed by the ovule. - Each seed contains a tiny plant called an embryo which has root, stem and leaf ,parts ready to grow into a new plant when conditions are favourable.
- Another part of the flower (the ovary) grows to form fruit, which protects the seeds and helps them spread away from the parent plant to continue the cycle.