Secret flowers

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

What do do

1. 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.
   
   
   
2. Collect seed heads that have small, yellow, fluffy, dangling things hanging out of them. These are the anthers and stigmas.
   
   
   
   
   
3. 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.)
4. Collect samples for further study and discussion in class.
5. 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.
   
   
   
   
6. Draw line diagrams of the seed heads showing the anthers and stigmas. Label.
   

Questions and discussion

1. Why do wind pollinated plants such as grasses and cereals not have colourful, scented flowers?
2. Why do you think the anthers of wind pollinated flowers dangle so loosely outside the flower?
3. 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.
   
   

Hints and tips

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.