Sexual Classification of Plants
1. Unisexual flower
a flower that has either male or female reproductive structures, but not both.
Unisexuality can be divided into two categories.
1-1) Monoecious: a type of plant that has separate male and female flowers on the same plant.
The representative plants of monoecious plants are corn and other Cucurbitaceae crops such as squash, cucumber, watermelon, pumpkin, etc.
The corn we eat is actually the female flower of the corn plant. It is fertilized by the pollen from the male flower, which produces corn kernels. This process is also applicable to all cucurbit crops. For instance, when pollen from the male flower is transferred to the female flower of cucumbers, the ovary of the latter swells and develops into a fruit.
1-2) Dioecious: a plant species that has separate male and female individuals
Spinach is one of the dioecious plants. Dioecious plants can be divided into gynoecious plants that produce only female flowers and androecious plants that produce only male flowers. Among trees, the Ginkgo tree is a representative dioecious plant.”
2. Bisexual flower
a flower that contains both male and female reproductive organs.
Bisexual flower refers to a plant that produces flowers with both male and female reproductive organs. Representative crops that produce bisexual flowers include vegetables such as peppers, radishes, and cabbages, and crops such as grains (rice, wheat, barley, etc.).
In the case of bisexual flowers, even if left alone, fertilization occurs and fruits are formed. However, interestingly, plants in the Brassicaceae family such as radish and cabbage exhibit self-incompatibility, where the pistil rejects its own pollen. If it is necessary to propagate a particular variety of Brassicaceae through self-pollination, there is no way to achieve fertilization. Therefore, CO2 gas treatment is often used to break down the self-incompatibility barrier.
3. Andromonoecious and gynomonoecious
Andromonoecious: a plant that has separate male and hermaphrodite flowers on the same individual plant.
Gynomonoecious: a type of plant that produces both female flowers and hermaphroditic (bisexual) flowers on the same individual plant.
Trimonoecious: a plant species that has three types of flowers on different individuals: male, female, and bisexual flowers.
