Flowering Plants

• Flowering plants include the various crops eaten for food, such as wheat, rice and corn. They also include all broadleaf trees. Apples, pears and other fruit trees are included in that category. All vegetables, berries and garden flowers are also part of the flowering plants, or anthophyta. Anthophytas are one of two seed-producing types of plants in the plant kingdom. The other seed-bearing plants, the gymnosperms, produce their seeds without coverings. Flowering plants are an important part of the human food chain.
  
  

Flowers

• Flowers are the basic part of the angiosperm's reproduction system. Within the flower are the male or female parts, though many times both are present. The male part is called the stamen. The stamen produces the pollen that holds the sperm cells of the flower. The female part of the plant is called the pistil. There may be one or more pistils present in a single flower, depending on the species. The pistil holds the ovules, or egg cells. When these are fertilized through pollination, the plant's seeds grow from the ovules.
  
  

Fruits

• Fruits are the next step in the plant's reproductive cycle. Once the pollen has fertilized the ovules, the flower's petals begin to wither away and the pistil develops into a fruit. A fruit may soft and fleshy, such as a pear or apricot, or it may be hard, such as an almond or walnut. The fruit is what hold the seeds. Sometimes the seeds are inside the fruit, as with an avocado, and sometimes they are outside, as with a strawberry.
  
  

Seeds

• The seeds are the finishing step to the plant's reproduction. Once the fruit has matured, it will fall to the ground, where the seed will then grow. When fruits are harvested, the seeds may be taken from the fruits and sold to farmers, thus continuing the cycle of a plant's life. There are two types of seeds in a flowering plant, the dicotyledon and the monocotyledon. These are also called dicots and monocots. A dicot seed has two cotyledons -- the part holding the food for the future plant. A monocot has only one cotyledon.