hmm actually i want to talk a little bit about plant sex and reproduction because using terms like “male” and “female” for plants can often be misleading
so to clarify what’s being talked about, “female” is a convenient way of saying ‘produces large, stationary gametes (reproductive cells) in relatively small numbers,’ and “male” is a convenient way of saying 'produces small, more motile gametes in relatively large numbers.“
In plants, "pollen” contains male gametes but it is not “plant sperm.” The way seed plant reproduction works is that basically the pollen grain is its own plant that has been extremely reduced in size, like cave fish losing their eyes but the pollen lost Everything and is basically just a little capsule for the “male” gametes.
This is because plants reproduce with alternation of generations, which is basically like if in order to have children, you and your partner each had to give birth to a special human capable of having sex, which would then create humans like you yourself.
You know how human sperm and egg cells have one set of chromosomes each—half as many as an adult human, which has (generally) two copies of every chromosome in every cell? Yeah, so instead of creating gametes directly, plants have always worked by basically having a whole child with only one set of chromosomes, whose purpose is to produce reproductive cells.
In the early evolutionary history of plants, both generations, the double-chromosomed Normal Form and the single-chromosomed Sex Having Form, have been entire independently living plants that could sometimes look very different from each other. However, in extant plants, one of the forms is very reduced and typically dependent on the parent plant. It’s a male anglerfish kinda situation. And in flowering plants, it is particularly extreme, where the Sex Having Form is entirely reduced to either a few cells inside the flower (“female” gametes) or just a tiny grain of Dust That Fucks (“male” gametes).
We’re not even getting into the plant genders yet.
In some plant species, individual plants are either male or female, but this is rare. Ginkgo is an example of a tree that has male or female trees. Male or female meaning they either produce “sperm” cells or “egg” cells. Plants that do this are called dioecious. (Plants that don’t are called monoecious.)
Well…it’s not that simple. In fact it’s kind of dumb to call a whole plant male or female at all since the kind of “male” or “female” binary we think of as default is so rare, but that’s a good place to start.
Flowers are reproductive organs of flowering plants. Are there male and female flowers then? Yes…sometimes, sort of. Oftentimes, flowers have both male and female “parts” in them at the same time, so they can produce pollen AND produce seeds. These flowers are called perfect or bisexual . In other cases, flowers are either “male” or “female,” with only male or female “parts” instead of both in the same flower, and these flowers are called imperfect or unisexual.
So this means that some plants are dioecious and have imperfect flowers, and some plants are monoecious and have perfect flowers, right?
…wrong. It’s way more complicated than that.
So let’s go over all the possibilities for dioecious plants. I lied earlier. Dioecious plants have separate reproductive roles or “sexes” on different plants…but these “sexes” are not necessarily “male” and “female.”
“male” and “female” (dioecious. example: ginkgo)
“male” and “both” (androdioecious. Example: Ginseng)
“female” and “both” (gynodioecious. Example: Great blue lobelia)
“male” AND “female” AND “both” (trioecious. example: Virginia strawberry)
HOWEVER…combine that with what we’ve just learned about flowers, and it gets way more complicated, because individual flowers themselves can be Male, Female, or Both…and an individual plant can produce any combination of these.
So, monoecious (opposite of dioecious) in the strict sense means a plant where all individuals produce “Male” flowers and “Female” flowers on the same plant. However, monoecious can also mean a plant species where all flowers are perfect/bisexual…or a plant where all individuals produce flowers that are Male, Female, AND bisexual…or a plant where all individuals produce flowers that are bisexual and male…and it keeps going.
And this is not even getting into situations where flowers transition from “male” to “female” or vice versa over time, or where whole plants do. (If I remember right, pawpaw is one of those plants where flowers transition from male to female.)
If you’re interested, read this paper from 1920 discussing discoveries about plant sexes. You can see how science was just then attempting to wrap its head around the possibilities, and that’s what I like about reading this. Some observers saw these variations as monstrous and abnormal, but eventually we realized it was just part of the beautiful diversity of nature.
I’m not an expert, just a nerd. If anyone wants to add anything that would be really cool.
The other night husband and I were watching a documentary about the yeti where they were doing DNA analysis of samples of supposed yeti fur, and every one of them came back as bears.
Anyway, the next night we watched a thing about some pig man who is supposed to live in Vermont. People said it had claws and a pig nose but walked upright like a man. Now, I happen to know that sideshows used to shave bears and present them as pig men. So every piece of evidence they gave of this monster sounds to me like a bear with mange.
So now the running joke in our house is that everything is bears. Aliens? Bears. Loch Ness monster? Bear. Every cryptozoological mystery is just a very crafty bear.
Bears. They’re everywhere. Be wary. Anyone or anything could be a bear.
yeah man sorry i kicked you in the balls last night for an hour i until you threw up i thought thats what sex was. why didnt you tell me to stop. oh you thought that was what sex wwas too. yeah. sorry, again.
The US ruling class backs Israel for the same reason it funded a coup against Evo Morales, because as a violent, genocidal Settler colony they back other Settlers and destroy examples of moves towards Indigenous rule in order to maintain their own position as a violent, genocidal Settler colony.
An end to US imperialism and end to Settler colonialism are necessary for the good of the world.
we have GOT to kill tiktok/twitter self-censorship i just witnessed a grown adult say the word “smex” out loud to our professor
my poor professor was SO confused that she asked them to repeat themselves and they went “you know, like, blank …” and kept just vaguely gesturing until she somehow connected the dots. i fucking hate art school
god i wish i was making the shit i witness at this place up. my life would be so much easier if i didn’t have to deal with my classmates seriously arguing about fandom discourse in the group project chat
the price you think you’re paying by going to art school: tuition, supply costs, etc
the price you’re actually paying by going to art school: having to put up with the most brain-rotting terminally online discourse imaginable in real life
I had someone argue with me that it was problematic for me to have watched Frozen with my niece because I was encouraging her to become an emotionally abuse codependent sibling. I’m a senior and I’ve had someone else doing their senior thesis ask, genuinely, if she was problematic for doing her thesis on domestic abuse, because sometimes domestic abuse effects rich white women and they’re privileged, so therefore her doing it on that is racism apologism. I’ve had to sit there and watch people say “unalive”, “SA”, “PDF file”, and my favorite, “marital relations” (it only happened once but it’s really funny) to professors who look at them in total despair.
Hamlet didn’t unalive himself, he killed himself. Our Crime Prevention class is discussing sexual assault and pedophiles. The implication of this paper we’re reading in Intro To Africana Studies is not about white settlers marrying and having gentle loving monogamous funtimes with slaves, it’s about rape.
I genuinely do not see how I’m supposed to take the people around me seriously. How am I supposed to believe you have incredible insights into something you can’t bring yourself to say? How am I supposed to look over your rough draft and not cross out the euphemisms and write grown-up words?
And I DO NOT go to art school! I go to Montana State! I’m in redneck country - remember when redneck meant tough enough to at least say words?! Not anymore!
ALT
