How plants reproduce
Biology · Key Stage 2 · The School
From flower to seed
In SEXUAL reproduction, pollen from the male part of a flower reaches the female part — pollination. A male cell then joins an egg cell, which is FERTILISATION, and a seed forms. The seed carries a mixture from two parents, so the new plant is not identical to either. That variation is the whole point of doing it this way.
Copies without seeds
Many plants also reproduce ASEXUALLY, making copies of themselves with no pollen involved. Strawberries send out runners that root where they touch. Potatoes grow new plants from tubers. Bulbs divide. Spider plants make plantlets on stems. Every offspring is genetically identical to the parent — a clone — which is why a whole strawberry bed can be one plant many times over.
Why both are useful
Asexual reproduction is fast and reliable and needs no pollinator, which suits a plant already growing somewhere that works. Sexual reproduction is slower and depends on pollen arriving, but produces variation — and variation is what lets a population cope when conditions change. Plants that do both get the advantages of each.
A bee brushes pollen from the ANTHER of one flower and carries it to the STIGMA of another — that is POLLINATION, and it is only a delivery. The grain then grows a tube down through the style to the OVULE, and its nucleus fuses with the egg cell — that is FERTILISATION. The ovule becomes a seed and the ovary swells into a fruit. If the bee delivers pollen and no tube grows, pollination happened and fertilisation did not.