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Answer the following questions.
1. What is a flower?
2. What is a seed usually preceded by?
3. By what means do most flowers reproduce?
4. What is a complete flower made up of?
5. What flower is incomplete?
6. What parts do the flowers of the small grains lack?
7. Are sepals and petals involved in seed production?
8. Where are petals located?
9. What is the corolla?
10. What are the reproductive organs of the flower?
11. Where are the pollen grains produced?
12. What does the pistil consist of?
13. Where are egg-cells produced?
14. What process is known as pollination?
15. What plants are spoken of as cross-pollinated?
Choose 8-10 key sentences from the text and retell the text using them.
16. Get acquainted with text B and find in the text answers to the following questions:
1. What is the biological function of the flower?
2. What do seeds serve for?
3. How are the groupings of flowers called?
4. What are the means of pollen transfer from one flower to another?
5. In what way have modern flowers been influenced by humans?
6. How do people beautify their life?
7. What do flowers provide man with?
8. What flower vegetables do you know?
9. Name some edible flowers.
Text B
A flower, also known as a bloom or blossom, is reproductive structure found in flowering plants. The biological function of a flower is to mediate the union of male cells with female cells in order to produce seeds. The process begins with pollination, is followed by fertilization, leading to the formation and dispersal of the seeds. For the higher plants, seeds are the next generation, and serve as the primary means by which individuals of a species are dispersed across the landscape.
The groupings of flowers on a plant is called the inflorescence. In addition to serving as the reproductive organs of flowering plants, flowers have long been admired and used by humans, mainly to beautify their environments but also as the source of the food. Each flower has a specific design which best encourages the transfer of its pollen. Some flowers attract and use insects, birds to transfer pollen from one flower to the next.
Flowers also attract pollinators by scent and color. Some species of orchids, for example, produce flowers resembling female bees in color, shape, and scent. Flowers are also specialized in shape and have an arrangement of the stamens that ensures that the pollen grains are transferred to the bodies of the pollinator when it lands in search of its attractant (such as nectar, pollen, or a matte). Flower evolution continues to the present day; modern flowers have been so much influenced by humans that many of them cannot be pollinated in nature.
The transition to flowering is one of the major phase changes that a plant makes during its life circle. Flower formation is initiated at the ends of stems and involves a number of different physiological and morphological changes. The first step is the transformation of the vegetative stem primordial into floral primordial. People grow flowers around their homes, dedicate entire parts of their living space to flower gardens, pick wildflowers or buy flowers from florists.
Flowers provide less food than other major plants parts (seeds, fruits, roots, stems and leaves) but they provide several important foods and spices. Flower vegetables include broccoli, cauliflower, and artichoke. The most expensive spice, saffron, consists of dried stigmas of a crocus. Other flower spices are clovers and capers. Hundreds of flesh flowers are dipped in bread crumbs and fried. Edible flowers include nasturtium, chrysanthemum, carnation, cornflower, canna and sunflower. Flowers can also be made into herbal teas; they are infused into tea both for their fragrance and medical properties.
Notes:
inflorescence – соцветие
caffron – шафран
capers –каперсы
17. Skim the text again and:
a) find the sentence in the text, which enumerates the functions of the flower;
b) describe the process of pollination;
c) say, what attracts pollinators to the flower;
d) who takes part in the process of pollination;
e) how is flower produced.