You look at a flower and see color. A botanist looks at the same flower and sees a set of named structures, each in a fixed place, each with a job. Learning the parts of the flower is mostly learning those names: sepal, petal, stamen, anther, filament, pistil, stigma, style and ovary. Once you know where each one sits, a flower stops being one shape and becomes a small, readable diagram.

The names also turn up in places you might not expect, including the ingredient line on a supplement label. We will get to that. First, the anatomy.

In Google Trends data for the US over the past 7 days, related searches for the seed term "parts of a flower" included three rising terms: "which part of the flower produces pollen" (+250%), "sepal" (+80%) and "anther" (+60%). Rising percentages show growth in interest compared with the previous period. A term marked "Breakout" would mean very large growth; none of these was. The top related searches were "parts of the flower" with a score of 100, followed by "what are the parts of a flower" (46), "male parts of a flower" (25), "female parts of a flower" (25), "male and female parts of a flower" (16), "reproductive parts of a flower" (16) and "parts of a flower and their functions" (3). Top scores are relative interest, scaled so the most popular term in the set equals 100. They are not search counts. The pattern is plain: people want the list of names, then they want to know which parts are male, which are female, and where pollen comes from.

What are the parts of a flower? Four rings, outside to inside

The easiest way to learn flower anatomy is to start at the outside and work in. Oregon State University Extension Service describes a complete flower as one that has a stamen, a pistil, petals and sepals. Those four groups sit in rough rings, one inside the next.

• Sepals (the outer ring)
• Petals (the next ring in)
• Stamens (the male parts)
• Pistil (the female part, at the center)

Oregon State adds the other side of that definition: if one of these parts is missing, the flower is called incomplete. So "complete" is a description of which parts are present, not a judgment about the flower.

Sepal and petal: the outer parts of the flower

Sepal. Oregon State University Extension Service describes sepals as small, green, leaflike structures located at the base of a flower. UF/IFAS Gardening Solutions, from the University of Florida, says sepals are leaf-like and usually connected at the very base of the flower. Taken together, the sepals have their own collective name: Oregon State calls them the calyx.

Petal. Oregon State describes petals as generally the highly colored portions of a flower, and calls the petals, taken together, the corolla. UF/IFAS notes that these brightly colored, leaf-like parts attract pollinators. Petal shape and color are often the first thing people use to tell similar flowers apart. Our piece on which coneflower is echinacea works through one of those look-alike groups.

Neither the sepal nor the petal makes pollen or seeds. They are the outer layers. The reproductive parts of a flower sit inside them.

The male parts of a flower: stamen, anther and filament

Oregon State University Extension Service calls the stamen the male reproductive organ. UF/IFAS Gardening Solutions phrases it a little more carefully: some scientists call the stamen the male reproductive structure. Either way, the stamen is the part people mean when they search for the male parts of a flower.

Each stamen has two pieces. Per Oregon State, it consists of a pollen sac (the anther) and a long filament beneath it.

• Anther: the pollen sac at the top of the stamen. UF/IFAS states it directly: the anther produces pollen.
• Filament: the stalk. Oregon State says the filament holds the anther in position, making the pollen available for dispersal by wind, insects or birds.

Which part of the flower produces pollen?

The anther. Both UF/IFAS Gardening Solutions and Oregon State University Extension Service place pollen in the anther, which sits at the tip of the filament.

The female parts of a flower: pistil, stigma, style and ovary

At the center of the flower is the pistil. Oregon State University Extension Service calls the pistil a plant's female part, and UF/IFAS Gardening Solutions says it is sometimes called the female reproductive structure. The pistil has three named sections, top to bottom.

• Stigma: the tip. UF/IFAS describes a sticky stigma that catches pollen. Oregon State notes the stigma is located at the top and is connected by the style to the ovary.
• Style: the stalk in the middle. UF/IFAS describes a stalk-like style that holds the stigma up in the air.
• Ovary: the base. UF/IFAS says the ovary sits inside the flower at the base of the style, and Oregon State says the ovary contains eggs, which reside in ovules.

One worked example makes the stigma easy to picture. The saffron crocus, Crocus sativus, is a member of the iris family (Iridaceae). Its botanical record in the PROTA database (Plant Resources of Tropical Africa, published through Pl@ntUse) describes a style divided into 3 brilliant orange-red stigmas, and identifies the saffron of commerce as the dried upper part of the style with those 3 red stigmas attached. In other words, the spice is a female flower part, picked from the flower. For the plant itself, its origin and its harvest, see our profile of what saffron crocus is.

Male and female parts of a flower, side by side

Here are the parts of a flower and their functions in one place, using the wording of the two extension services cited above.

The connection between the two sides is pollination. Oregon State University Extension Service defines pollination as the movement of pollen from an anther to a stigma, carried either by wind or by pollinators. UF/IFAS describes what happens next: if pollen reaches the stigma, it works its way down through the style to the ovule.

Perfect, imperfect, and plants with separate sexes

Not every flower carries both sets of reproductive parts. Oregon State University Extension Service uses four terms worth knowing:

• Perfect flower: contains both functional stamens and pistils.
• Imperfect flower: either stamens or pistils are lacking.
• Staminate (male): contains stamens, but no pistils.
• Pistillate (female): has a functional pistil or pistils but lacks stamens.

The same idea scales up to whole plants. Per Oregon State, monoecious plants have separate male and female flowers on the same plant, and dioecious species have separate male and female plants. UF/IFAS gives a useful example of how "perfect" and "complete" differ: dogwood has both pistils and stamens but is missing sepals or petals, so it is a perfect flower that is not complete.

Our take

We think flower anatomy is one of the most useful small vocabularies you can learn. It is a short list of names, laid out in rings from the outside in, and every name points to one place on the flower. Learn the order (sepal, petal, stamen, pistil) and the rest falls into line.

We also like that the words travel. Once you know a stigma is the tip of the pistil, a label that lists a "stigma extract" stops being a mystery word and becomes a precise description of which part of which flower was used.

Why we carry it at PRSPR

That is the bridge to the FLORÉ Probiotic. The only flower part named on its label is a stigma: the listed contents include Affron® saffron stigma extract, 28 mg. Now you know exactly which part of the flower that word refers to.

Here is the full list of listed contents, as it appears for the product:

• Saccharomyces boulardii
• Bifidobacterium longum
• Bifidobacterium animalis subsp. lactis
• Lactobacillus plantarum
• Lactobacillus reuteri
• Weizmannia coagulans
• Lactobacillus rhamnosus (heat-treated)
• PreforPro® bacteriophage blend (LH01, LL5, T4D + LL12)
• Acacia fiber
• Affron® saffron stigma extract, 28 mg

The format is simple: the label shows 30 capsules, and the listing shows 30 servings at 1 capsule daily. The price is $61.36. It is made in a GMP-certified facility and third-party batch tested. You can see it alongside other recent additions in New Arrivals.

See the FLORÉ Probiotic at PRSPR

FAQ

What are the parts of a flower?

The main parts are the sepals, petals, stamens and pistil. Oregon State University Extension Service calls a flower with all four a complete flower; each stamen has an anther and a filament, and the pistil has a stigma, style and ovary.

Which part of the flower produces pollen?

The anther. UF/IFAS Gardening Solutions states that the anther produces pollen, and Oregon State University Extension Service describes the anther as the pollen sac at the top of the stamen.

What are the male and female parts of a flower?

The stamen (anther plus filament) is the male part, and the pistil (stigma, style and ovary) is the female part, per Oregon State University Extension Service. A flower with both is called a perfect flower.

What is a sepal?

A sepal is one of the small, green, leaflike structures at the base of a flower, as Oregon State University Extension Service describes them. Together, the sepals form the calyx.