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In looking at how flowers are divided into families, we see that they are typically grouped by shared features. These shared features are petals, sepals and leaves. Let's take a look at flower leaves.
Well, first let's take a look at what the flower's anatomy is composed of. The flower is the end of a plant stalk and is composed of a floral organ attached to a receptacle that is attached to the stalk. The petals are the part of the flower that most of us know. Anyone who has played that game of he/she loves me, he/she loves me not, with a daisy knows what petals are. They are the white parts that we pull off in the game.
If you look at a bud about to burst into bloom, you can see a little cup holding the petals together. The cup looks like a bunch of little leaves. The cup is called a calyx and each little leaf-like segment is a sepal.
The flower leaves are the easiest part to recognize. They are most often green and appear on the flower stalk. They are the nutrient gatherers. The roots pull water and food from the soil. Leaves carry out a process called photosynthesis. Flower leaves act like solar panels. They pull in water and carbon dioxide and send out sugar and oxygen.
The water comes up to the flower leaves from the root through plant cells called xylem. Carbon dioxide comes in through the leaves through little pores called stoma. These two meet in the leaves. The oxygen is released from the leaves through the stoma as well. The sugar stays and feeds the plant.
If you are ready for this, let me explain why leaves are usually green. Pigment is what gives color to living things. Our own skin color is the result of the amount of pigment we have. Pigment absorbs light. If you have ever seen a prism in action, you know how light is split into colors. A rainbow is a result of prismatic action and the colors of it are the separate colors of light.
Black pigment absorbs all the colors. White pigment absorbs none of the colors. Instead it reflects the colors back to us. When we see black we are seeing the absence of color because the organism has absorbed all the color. When we see white, we see all the colors because they are all reflected back to us.
What this means is that what we see when we look at a color is the part of the light that is not absorbed by the objects. Leaves reflect chlorophyll, which is the green pigment that is not absorbed by the flower leaves.
But I digress. The point is that flower leaves need water and light to do their magic. If the leaves start fading and losing their green, they are losing their chlorophyll and they will not be able to carry out the necessary photosynthesis.
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