Jump to content

Perfect

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Robert Foley (talk | contribs) at 18:32, 27 April 2003 (plant discussion). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)

In botany and mycology, an organism is considered perfect if it is capable of sexual reproduction. If it isn't, it is imperfect. The term perfect has nothing to do with the quality of an organism.

The exact idea of being perfect or imperfect varies somewhat between plants and fungi.

All fungi in the division Deuteromycota cannot undergo any form of sexual reproduction.

All nonflowering seed plants are imperfect in relation some angiosperms. This is because thier reproductive organs are either male or female. This does not mean one single plant would have both seed and pollen cones. So gymnosperms are either dioecious or monoecious but never both.

A flower is perfect if it has both male and female parts. That is, it has both filaments, anthers, stamens and a style, ovary and ovule. This makes a flower perfect. If a plant has seperate male and female flowers, it is dioecious. If the plants have male or female flowers on seperate individuals, it's monoecious.