The reproductive structures of flowers can be broken down into stamen and carpels. Stamen, you can think of as the male reproductive parts, and carpels, you can think of as the female reproductive parts. The stamen is going to be the structure that produces pollen, and it is made up of 2 portions, what we call the filament, which is going to be this stalk-like appendage here. So that is a filament. You can also see it pictured here. And then we also have the anther, and the anther is what contains the microsporangium, which will produce microspores, and we'll talk about the fate of microspores in a little bit.
Moving on, we have the carpel, the female reproductive structure, which is this whole thing right here, that is a carpel. And it's also made up of some components, the stigma, which you can see here, that's the tip of the carpel. So if I were to draw this structure out a little bit, the stigma would be the tip there, oops. And that's going to be where the pollen lands, where the pollen is received during the reproductive process. Again, we'll talk more about that a little bit. The style is basically the pathway that leads from the stigma into the ovary. And you can see it pictured here, it's, let me choose a different color and make it more clear, it's going to be like this portion. And then this bottom portion of the carpel is the ovary. And the ovary contains what are called ovules. These are going to be things that receive sperm from the male portions of flowers. We'll get to all that later.
Now, flowers will also have a structure known as the nectary. The nectary is going to be the gland that secretes nectar, which is a super sugary solution, and that's what some pollinators are going to feed on. And this nectary can actually be located inside the flower or outside the flower, it doesn't really matter for your understanding, the difference between all that, just know that it can be inside the flower, sometimes it's outside the flower.
Now moving on to those ovules. The ovule is the structure that contains the megaspore and it's what's going to develop into a seed after fertilization happens. So this ovule right here is, oops, Sorry. This ovule right here is going to have some structures you should be aware of. We have the integument, which is this outer protective layer, and then the micropyle, which is the opening, the apex of the integument, which is going to allow the sperm to enter in and fertilize this structure. Let's turn the page.