page_title: Flower
section_title: Human usage
hierarchical_section_title: Flower / Human usage
caption_attribution_description: English: Qian Xuan, Eight Flowers, Palace Museum, Beijing.
context_page_description: A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants. The biological function of a flower is to affect reproduction, usually by providing a mechanism for the union of sperm with eggs. Flowers may facilitate outcrossing resulting from cross pollination or allow selfing when self pollination occurs.
  Pollination have two types which is self-pollination and cross-pollination. Self-pollination happened when the pollen from the anther is deposited on the stigma of the same flower, or another flower on the same plant. Cross-pollination is the transfer of pollen from the anther of one flower to the stigma of another flower on a different individual of the same species. Self-pollination happened in flowers where the stamen and carpel mature at the same time, and are positioned so that the pollen can land on the flower’s stigma. This pollination does not require an investment from the plant to provide nectar and pollen as food for pollinators.
  Some flowers produce diaspores without fertilization. Flowers contain sporangia and are the site where gametophytes develop.
context_section_description: In modern times, people have sought ways to cultivate, buy, wear, or otherwise be around flowers and blooming plants, partly because of their agreeable appearance and smell. Around the world, people use flowers to mark important events in their lives:
  For new births or christenings
  As a corsage or boutonniere worn at social functions or for holidays
  As tokens of love or esteem
  For wedding flowers for the bridal party, and for decorations for the hall
  As brightening decorations within the home
  As a gift of remembrance for bon voyage parties, welcome-home parties, and "thinking of you" gifts
  For funeral flowers and expressions of sympathy for the grieving
  For worship. In Christianity, chancel flowers often adorn churches. In Hindu culture, adherents commonly bring flowers as a gift to temples
  People therefore grow flowers around their homes, dedicate parts of their living space to flower gardens, pick wildflowers, or buy commercially-grown flowers from florists.
  Flowers provide less food than other major plant parts (seeds, fruits, roots, stems and  leaves), but still provide several important vegetables and spices. Flower vegetables include broccoli, cauliflower and artichoke. The most expensive spice, saffron, consists of dried stigmas of a crocus. Other flower spices are cloves and capers. Hops flowers are used to flavor beer. Marigold flowers are fed to chickens to give their egg yolks a golden yellow color, which consumers find more desirable; dried and ground marigold flowers are also used as a spice and colouring agent in Georgian cuisine. Flowers of the dandelion and elder are often made into wine. Bee pollen, pollen collected from bees, is considered a health food by some people. Honey consists of bee-processed flower nectar and is often named for the type of flower, e.g. orange blossom honey, clover honey and tupelo honey.
  Hundreds of fresh flowers are edible, but only few are widely marketed as food. They are often added to salads as garnishes. Squash blossoms are dipped in breadcrumbs and fried. Some edible flowers include nasturtium, chrysanthemum, carnation, cattail, Japanese honeysuckle, chicory, cornflower, canna, and sunflower. Edible flowers such as daisy, rose, and violet are sometimes candied.
  Flowers such as chrysanthemum, rose, jasmine, Japanese honeysuckle, and chamomile, chosen for their fragrance and medicinal properties, are used as tisanes, either mixed with tea or on their own.
  Flowers have been used since prehistoric times in funeral rituals: traces of pollen have been found on a woman's tomb in the El Miron Cave in Spain. Many cultures draw a connection between flowers and life and death, and because of their seasonal return flowers also suggest rebirth, which may explain why many people place flowers upon graves. The ancient Greeks, as recorded in Euripides's play The Phoenician Women,  placed a crown of flowers on the head of the deceased; they also covered tombs with wreaths and flower petals. Flowers were widely used in ancient Egyptian burials, and the Mexicans to this day use flowers prominently in their Day of the Dead celebrations in the same way that their Aztec ancestors did.
caption: Eight Flowers, a painting by artist Qian Xuan, 13th century, Palace Museum, Beijing.
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