In Depth

Title: The Anatomy of a Flower

Terminology:

Botany, like most science, has a language of its own. For the amateur naturalist a thorough knowledge of botanical terms is not necessary but to make any sense of a field guide some basic understanding of the more common terms is certainly a help.

Most field guides will contain a glossary of terms and it pays to spend some time just looking thorough it and picking out some of the more common ones and I have no doubt that you will be surprised at just how many you will already know.

If you want a more thorough list of botanical terms then you can find several on the internet, the one provided by Wikipedia is as good as any in my view and its free.

It pays to ensure you understand the following parts of a flower (as I say, many are quite obvious):

• Root
• Stem
• Leaf
• Flower
• Fruit
• Petal
• Floret
• Sepal
• Anther
• Filament
• Stamens
• Stigma
• Style
• Ovary/ovule
• Pistil
• Receptacle
• Pedicel
• Pollen
• Nectary
• Calyx
• Bract
• Raceme
• Cyme/cymose
• Involucre

In addition there are terms used to describe shapes and positions of leaves or flowers such as:

• Alternate
• Opposite
• Lanceolate
• Pinnate
• Lobed
• Basal
• Whorl

If any of these are not familiar to you then look them up in a glossary.

Method: 

How do you go about identifying flowers? We have many wild flowers in this country and knowing the detail of all of them is for the specialist in botanical recording. For most of us it is just not possible to ever learn and remember all of this detail and good reference books are too big to carry.

Once you encounter a species in the field that you are not familiar with, please, NEVER pick a specimen, especially of a less common species. Apart from preventing the plant from fulfilling its potential and seeding specimens rarely last long and by the time you get them home they are likely to be withered and of little use. 

In practice a camera is obviously useful but a photograph alone is often not enough as it may not clearly show some detailed features such as the presence of hairs on the stems. As well as a photograph or in lieu of one if you do not have a camera with you, you will need to make some notes and these are the sorts of things to look for and note down:

FLOWER:

• Number of petals, shape, colour, arrangement
• Number of and position of flowers on stem
• Sepals present? Colour, number
• Number of stamens and pistils, colour or structure
• Other noticeable features?

LEAVES:

• Shape of leaf, pinnate or lobed or other
• Position of leaves, at base, alternate, opposite
• Colour of leaf on surface? Underside?
• Smooth or veined? Hairy or clear

STEM:

• Colour of stem?
• Shape of stem, round or square? Ridged?
• Hairy or smooth?
• Branched or single? Multiple stems or a single stem

OTHER:

• Any other noticeable feature of the plant other than listed above?
• Spines present? Root?

Tips:

Here are a few tips from someone who still has a great deal to learn!

1. A Good Book: essential to anyone wanting to identify flowers is a good reference book. Many field guides are totally inadequate as they try to contain too much information in too small a space and actually become very difficult to understand. My preference is to take a photograph and description in the field (see above) and when I get home to look it up in my reference book “An Illustrated Flora of Britain and northern Europe” by Marjorie Blamey and Christopher Grey-Wilson. 
    
2. Practice: Get to know your chosen reference book by picking a few common weeds from your garden or nearby park and look at them in the hand with your reference book by your side. Read about the plant and look for the described features on your specimen, you can learn a lot about your book and about botany by doing this.
    
3. Families: As getting to know the features of every individual flower species is such a mammoth task try to get a feel for the characteristics of the main flower groups. Once you know that a labiate has a unique form of flower shape and a square stem, for example, when you find a flower you do not know but has these characteristics then at least you know which part of the reference book to start looking in.
    
4. Holistic approach: Remember that vascular plants have more than just a pretty flower head! Start looking also at the characteristics of the leaves and the stem as well. You should be looking for the shape of the leaf, how it is arranged on the plant, its colour (on both sides) and its texture (hairy, smooth, ridged, etc). Stems too have features; some are round whilst others are square or ridged; some have hairs others are smooth and some have distinctive colouring.
    
5. Big picture: Never forget that plants grow in soil and so where you are can be vital clue as to a species identity. The time of year is important too, many plants have a specific time of year when they actually have a flower head. Finally, statistically you are more likely to find a common plant than a rare one. Always expect the unexpected of course, but always too, err on the side of caution and consider the common options first. Sometimes the differences between sspecies can be very small.: