Fertilisation in Plants

Objective: To know how gametes fuse together in

plants.
• Flowering plants contain reproductive organs in the flower.
• Flowers usually contain both male and female reproductive
parts.

Stamens
• Male parts of the flower containing the anther (where pollen is
stored) and the filament

Stamen
Carpels
• Female parts of the flower
• May contain just one or many within one flower.
• Each carpel consists of:
Ovary: housing the ovules (female gametes)
Stigma: surface which picks up pollen
Style: connects the two

Carpel
Pollination

• The transfer of pollen from one flower to another.

Self Pollination
• Pollen from the same flower or flowers from the same plant land on an anther.

Cross Pollination
• Pollen from anthers of a different plant that is from the same species.

Movement of pollen
Transfer of Pollen

• There are many ways that pollen can be transferred from one plant to
another, the most common of these is by insect or by wind.

• Plants release a sugary substance called nectar that attracts insects to

the flower.

• They also produce colourful flowers that attract insects and birds.

• Other types of pollination include running water and bats as a method of

pollen transfer.
Fertilisation in Flowering Plants

• This occurs after an appropriate pollen grain has landed on the

stigma. Pollen from plants of the same species are the only ones that
can carry out fertilisation.

The pollen grain grows a pollen tubule which travels

down the style.

The pollen tube grows into the ovary and delivers the
pollen nucleus to the ovule.
The pollen tube delivers two male nuclei to the ovule.

One of these nuclei fuses with the egg nucleus to create an

embryo.

The other nucleus fuses with a different nucleus that creates a

food store for the developing embryo.

This process is unique to flowering plants.

 Questions

1. Identify the structures 1-8 and give 1 function of each:

2. Double fertilisation is unique to flowering plants, explain what this term means.