Introduction

Sexual reproduction is what makes flowering plants worth admiring the way we do — every flower's scent, colour, and shape exists to serve that one purpose, not for our benefit. It's easy to forget that the beauty we enjoy in flowers is really an adaptation: across angiosperms, the huge diversity of inflorescences, flowers, and floral parts all point toward the same end, the formation of fruits and seeds. This chapter works through exactly how that happens — the morphology, structure, and processes behind sexual reproduction in flowering plants.