Rocket peeks into a flower in a picture book. "What is all this yellow dust?"
Raven points to the middle of the flower. "What do you notice? Some dust is stuck up here."
Nova hovers near the page. "That dust has an important job," she hints. "Where is it going?"
Rocket guesses. "Is the dust part of making seeds?"
Flowers have parts that work together to make seeds.
The anther makes pollen, a fine powder.
The stigma is a sticky knob in the middle of the flower.
Below the stigma is the ovary. It holds tiny ovules.
Petals help attract pollinators like bees, butterflies and bats.
First, pollen lands on the sticky stigma.
Next, a tiny tube grows down to the ovary.
Then the pollen joins with an ovule.
The ovule becomes a seed. The ovary becomes the fruit.
Moving pollen to the stigma is called pollination.
Flower experts! Tomorrow we learn that some plants live one year and some live many.