Wanna help me Study for Biology?

You DO? Great! Let me tell you about it...

So... you have this thing called the flower. It consists of:

The obvious: petals. But did you know that it also consists of sepals? which are the outermost petals that protect the bud of the flower as it is developing. When you are talking about more than one sepal it is called the Calyx. Just so you know. And now that its spring and things are budding everywhere you can use it in all sorts of cool sentences. For example, "wow look at that beautiful Calyx" or "wow, that Calyx is really doing a great job of protecting that bud!" Then of course there is also the Anther and the Filament which combined together is called the Stamen. And yes you guessed it. The stamen is the male part of the flower. How do you remember that its male and not female? Well, just look at the word: sta"men." That's right. mmhmm. Then you have the Stigma and the style and the ovary, which holds the ovule. Sounds like a song I know except: "the stigma is attached to the sy-le, the style is attached to the ov-ary and and the ovary holds the ov-ule." And oh you guys are so smart-- all together these parts make the female part of the flower. Oh! Don't forget that all of these female parts put together is called the carpal.
(sorry if this diagram gets cut in half... it might be too big)

orchid

Aren't you so happy you got your little biology lesson today? Oh and something really fascinating: did you know that the orchid has a tricking mechanism? It has one petal disguised to look like a female bee that even smells like a female bee which then attracts the male bees over who try to mate with this fake female bee. They try and try to mate and in the midst of all of their sexual frustration they pick up a bunch of pollen. Then they leave and rest because they are so exhausted which then situates the pollen in the perfect position to be left to fertilize the next flower the bee lands on. Crazy huh?

mmmhmmm. And while I'm studying all of this, the girl behind me at coffee is reading childrens books (all of which I read to little 3 year old everyday!) and writing reviews for them for her children's book class. *sigh.*

I will never be able to look at a flower the same way again. ;)