The fascinating secrets of plant reproduction that scientists are still uncovering

By John Doonan, Professor of Plant Cell Biology , Aberystwyth University
Maurice Bosch, Reader in Plant Cell Biology , Aberystwyth University

You might think flowers don’t have much choice about who they mate with, given they are rooted to the ground and can’t move.

But when scientists from Nagoya, Japan used powerful microscopes to study the fertilisation process, they were surprised to find the female part of a flowering plant (ovules) could repel sperm from pollen and direct them to nearby unfertilised ovules in the same plant.

First though, it’s important to understand how reproduction in flowering plants works. Just…

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