PLANT REPRODUCTION

This lesson will look again at seeds (briefly), why and how they are produced. It will also look at the other ways plants have of reproducing. At the end you should have knowledge of the ways plants reproduce and be able to explain some of them.

Seeds Why do plants produce seeds? So new plants can grow There are a large variety of seeds with different shapes and sizes.

How do plants make seeds? Seeds are produced by sexual reproduction Many plants produce flowers Flowers contain female and male sex cells - Ovules (female) and pollen (male) Plants use pollination and fertilisation to produce seeds.

Flowers What are the names of the flower parts? petal anther stigmastyle ovary ovule

Flowers produce pollen (male sex cells) in the anther Fertilisation is when the nucleus from the pollen fuses with the nucleus from the ovule - this then develops into a seed Pollination is the transfer of pollen from the anther to the stigma - mainly by wind or insects Flowers produce ovules (female sex cells) in the ovary

The ovary then develops into a fruit. Fruits come in a wide variety of types. Sexual reproduction has many advantages. What might these be? Seeds are then dispersed away from the parent plant in many different ways.

Plants also reproduce asexually. This means they do not have to produce sex cells. These natural methods of asexual reproduction include: tubers, corms, rhizomes, runners and plantlets Make a note of these and then find out what each one is and examples of common plants that reproduce this way.

Review the research with the teacher to make sure everyone understands the different types of asexual reproduction and can name some examples. The next slides will help do this.

Tubers These are underground stores of food with growing points. These growing points produce new plants the next year.

Corms These are swollen underground stems. The plant stores food for the next years growth. Including Dahlias, Crocus And Iris

Rhizomes These are modified stems usually underground. They send out roots and shoots from nodes. They include ferns water lilies, ginger and bamboo

Runners These are plants that produce small plants from a runner. They root when they touch the soil. Including strawberries and spider plants

Plantlets These plants grow small plants from established leaves. Including the mexican hat plant and the piggy back plant