UCSB Science Line (2024)

Answer 1:

There is no simple answer to that. Thescientifically correct answer is buttercups, although the common English (and scientifically incorrect) answer is sunflowers.

The family that has the truest petals is the buttercup family, the Ranunculaceae. Those flowers can vary in the number of petals, even within a species, but ten-twelve is a common number.

However, in some of the more primitive flowering plants, the level of leaves just underneath the petals (the "sepals") are not fully distinguished from the petals (both are modified leaves). Some of these plants, such as the magnolia family, the Magnoliaceae, can have many more "petals" than the buttercups.

Finally, there is the sunflower family, the Asteraceae (which includes daisies, thistles, etc.); their "petals" are actually miniature flowers that surround a large, central disk, which is in turn made up of a different kind of flower. Individual flowers of this familyactually have only five petals, which arefrequently fused into a single unit, but a singlehead of these flowers can itself contain hundredsor thousands of these individual, five-petaledflowers.

It is also of note that the sepals of the monocots (grasses, palms, lilies, and theirrelatives) are generally brightly colored and thusappear to be "petals", but they're not. If youlook carefully, you will find that three of thebrightly-colored leaves are above the other three;the three above are the true petals and the threebelow are the sepals. Look at an iris for one goodexample.


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UCSB Science Line (2024)

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