In this Quick Guide, Johnson introduces the reader to carrion flowers, which evolved to mimic rotting flesh. This adaptation attracts insects that facilitate pollination.

The Caricaceae is a small family of tropical trees and herbs in which most species are dioecious. In the present study, we extend our previous work on dioecy in the Caricaceae, characterising the morphological variation in sexual expression in flowers of the dioecious tree Jacaratia mexicana. We found that, in J. mexicana, female plants produce only pistillate flowers, while male plants are sex...

Many insects which gather nectar or pollen exhibit flower constancy, a learned fidelity to a particular species of plant. Recent studies suggest that foraging insects may use a perceptual mechanism akin to a search image to detect flowers, in a manner analogous to the way that predators search for prey. This has emerged as an alternative (but not mutually exclusive) explanation for flower const...

Floral color changes and retention of old flowers are frequently combined phenomena restricted to the floral guide or single flowers in few-flowered inflorescences. They are thought to increase the attractiveness over long distances and to direct nearby pollinators toward the rewarding flowers. In Tibouchina pulchra, a massively flowering tree, the whole flower changes its color during anthesis...

The chemical variations of the essential oil from the aerial parts of Laurus nobilis L. (Lauraceae) have been studied. Plant material has been harvested at each phenological status (vegetative, before anthesis, full flowering and seed-bearing). The oils were obtained by hydrodistillation of the air-dried samples. Analysis by GC and GC-MS of the essential oils has allowed to identify 39 compound...

The production of seed by both selfing and outcrossing, or mixed mating, may be selected for under conditions of variable pollinator availability. Seed production was examined following experimental manipulations of perfect and pistillate flowers of the gynomonoecious plant Silene noctiflora. Style excision experiments in a greenhouse demonstrated that autonomous selfing occurs in the perfect f...

Arabidopsis flowers have four petals. Other floral organs are not represented on the diagram. KLU expression in petals is shown in red. Wild-type tissue is shown in yellow whereas klu mutant tissue is shown in blue. Wild-type flowers are larger than klu mutant flowers. Flowers that contain wild-type and mutant tissue (chimeric flowers) are of intermediate size between wild-type and mutant flowe...