Download Dissecting Gladiolus (adapted from “How to Dissect” by W. Berman

Dissecting Gladiolus (adapted from “How to Dissect” by W. Berman, 4th ed. 1984,
Prentice Hall Press)
We are going to dissect a member of the monocotyledons, the gladiolus, seen below. The
gladiolus is a complete flower, meaning it has all of the requisite parts of a flower, male
& female organs plus petals & sepals. It is large and simple to dissect and is a fine
representative of one of the two great divisions of flowering plants. There are about 260
species of the Gladiolus genus, a member of the lily family.
Obtain a stalk or stem with several gladiolus flowers. Carefully remove one blossom
from the stem and then examine the flower to identify the key parts. It is called a perfect
flower because both male and female parts are present. As is true with most flowers, it is
bisexual.
Carefully peel down the modified protective leaf until you reach lower end of ovary.
Then cut the leaf off with scissors. Be careful not to damage ovary. With a sharp scalpel
or razor trim the remaining tissue of leaf away from lower end or base of ovary. Bend
sepals backward until they crack. Cut them off at point of break with scissors. Remove
the petals in the same way. Examine both surfaces of the petals and sepals. Observe how
heavily laden they are with sap. Note that the veins show up clearly, indicating that the
petal is really a modified leaf with color pigment for attracting insects.
The specimen now looks like a cup with stalks projecting outward. Remove each stamen
and its attachment from the flower, as shown below.
After you have removed the stamens, examine the anthers with the low-power lens on the
microscope Note the enormous number of pollen grains. Can you imagine how many
pollen grains are carried from flower to flower by a single bee?
. Fig. 126b shows a stamen removed from the flower. Hold the stamen at its lower end
and strike the anther sharply against a glass slide. Examine the slide with a microscope
under low and high power to get a better view of the remarkable pollen structures
The Ovary and Ovule of the Gladiolus
After the stamens have been removed, we can now dissect the pistil, the female organ of
the flower. Study Fig. 126c. Examine the external appearance of the ovary. Note the
longitudinal lines or sutures. They provide evidence of the fact that the pistil of the
gladiolus is really three pistils that have fused together.
To study the inside of the ovary, we will remove a wedge from the ovary as shown in
Figs. 126c, 127a, and 127b. After removing the wedge, examine it under the microscope
Locate the parts labeled in Figs. 127a and 127b.
The Next Generation – From Ovules to Seeds
A microscopic view of the anatomy of an ovule is shown in Fig. 127c, which also
describes the reproductive functions of the parts of the ovule. Seeds develop from
fertilized and matured ovules within the ovary. But the ovary has an additional role. It
develops, matures, and ripens into fruit often along with other connected parts of the
flower. So botanically, the tomato is a fruit for it is an enlarged ovary containing mature
fertilized ovules or seeds.