The Marvelous Science of Girliness

Many people mistakenly believe that flowers and sunshine are simple things for nincompoops. Boy, are they ever wrong. The science of girliness is actually quite complex. Take the structure of a flower, for example.
 Flowers are intricate reproductive organs that are composed of four kinds of specialized leaves. They are SEPALS, PETALS, STAMENS AND CARPELS.

Sepals and petals: The "sterile" leaves
The sepal is located in the outermost circle of floral parts. It is usually green and looks like your ordinary leaf. But do not be fooled! Sepals are anything but ordinary. They enclose the bud before it opens, and protect the flower while it develops. They do not produce reproductive cells so they are called sterile leaves, just like their neighbors, the petals! Petals are often brightly colored and are found located right inside the sepals. The petals work to attract insects and other pollinators to the flower.

Stamens and Carpels: The "happy couple" leaves
W/in the ring of petals are structures that produce the male and female gametophytes. A gametophyte is the haploid or gamete-producing phase of an organism. Haploid is a term used to refer to a cell that contains only a single set of chromosomes and therefore only a single set of genes. The male parts consist of an anther and a filament, which together make up a stamen. The filament is a long thing stalk that supports an anther.
An anther is an oval sac where meiosis takes place, producing haploid male gametophytes-- pollen grains. In most angiosperms, each flower has several stamens. If you run your hand on the anther of a flower, a yellow dust may stick to your skin. This is pollen which consists of thousands of of individual pollen grains.
Th intermost floral part is the carpels, aka pistils. They are the female part of the flower. Each carpel has a broad base forming an ovary which contains one or more ovules where female gametophytes are produced here.
The diameter of the pistils narrow into a stalk known as the style. At the top of the style is a sticky portion known as the stigma. This is where pollen grains usually land. Some flowers have several pistils fused together to form a compound carpel.

In conclusion: Flowers are very different and quite beautiful. A typical flower produces both male and female gametophyte. In some plants, however, male and female gametophyte are produced in separate flowers on the same individual. Corn, for example, has separate male and female flowers on the same plant. The tassel is a flower that produces male gametophytes and the silk is the style of a flower that contains the female gametophyte. In other cases many flowers grow together to form a composite structure that looks likes a single flower. A good example of this is the sunflower.