FAR Research | Secret flowers

Estimated Time 1 hour
Location Indoors & Outdoors
Time of Year Summer & Spring
Curriculum L3 & L4
Subject Science

Discover the secret flowers of grass plants — wind pollinated flowers that are hidden, yet in plain view. They are everywhere around us and are incredibly important.

Learning Intentions

Students will be able to:

locate and identify the flowers of grasses, including cereals and corn or maize
collect and study their anthers, stigmas and pollen
explain the importance of wind pollination, especially with regard to cereal crops.

Introduction

Many important plants have flowers that we don't really notice or recognise as flowers. Yet, these flowers are very important, because they belong to plants that produce our food (for example wheat, barley, and corn) and feed our sheep, cattle and deer (for example ryegrass in pastures). In this activity you are going on a hunt to find these secret flowers.

What You Will Need:

Magnifying glasses.
Sellotape.
Optional: microscopes.

Corn plant parts

Corn plant showing anthers on the tassel, and the silks which are the stigmas.

What do do

Search for plants belonging to the grass family. Spot ones that are beginning to 'go to seed' with at least one tall flower head that is still green and producing pollen. The whole flower head is called an inflorescence. Below is an inflorescence that is at the right stage.

Flowering grass head with anthers releasing pollen.
Collect seed heads that have small, yellow, fluffy, dangling things hanging out of them. These are the anthers and stigmas.

Grass flower head showing an anther (large circle) and stigma (small circle).
See how observant you are by finding as many different grasses with anthers and stigmas as you can. Corn and maize are a little different. Their anthers are at the top of the plant, while the stigmas, called silks, are the stringy threads hanging out of each corn cob. (See diagram to right.)
Collect samples for further study and discussion in class.
In class, try collecting some of the flower parts and pollen by using sellotape or tweezers and display them for others to see. View using a magnifying glass or stereo microscope.

Grass flower's anthers on sellotape.
Draw line diagrams of the seed heads showing the anthers and stigmas. Label.

Questions and discussion

Why do wind pollinated plants such as grasses and cereals not have colourful, scented flowers?
Why do you think the anthers of wind pollinated flowers dangle so loosely outside the flower?
If a farmer had a long narrow row of corn and a period of still weather, how might their crop be affected? Why? The photo below might help.

Corn-cobs that have been poorly pollinated.

Hints and tips

Where to locate suitable grasses: At school or home look for uncut grass plants along the edges of lawns and gardens, or the corn plants in a vegetable plot. On a farm look for wheat, barley, oats or maize plants grown as crops, or, the grasses in pastures. You will also find various grasses along road verges and in wild areas.
Cereals such as wheat, oats, rice and corn are domesticated grasses.

Related resources

Collecting pollen Activity

Flower facts Info sheet

Flower dissection Activity

Moving pollen flower-to-flower Info sheet

Picture credits: Flowering grass head (PxHere CC0). Corn plant (LadyofHats CC0). All others Peter E Smith, NSIL.

Secret flowers

Discover the secret flowers of grass plants — wind pollinated flowers that are hidden, yet in plain view. They are everywhere around us and are incredibly important.

Learning Intentions

Introduction

What You Will Need:

Corn plant parts

What do do

Questions and discussion

Hints and tips

Related resources

Related Resources

Egg grass heads

Garden in a glove

Bumble bee foraging

One seed becomes many

Where does our food come from?

What comes next?

Bean germination masters

Egg carton caterpillar

Microgreen sandwiches

Grassy numbers