page_title: Sequential hermaphroditism
section_title: Flowering plants
hierarchical_section_title: Sequential hermaphroditism / Botany / Flowering plants
caption_attribution_description: English: Protandrous flowers of Aeonium undulatum
context_page_description: Sequential hermaphroditism is a type of hermaphroditism that occurs in many fish, gastropods, and plants. Sequential hermaphroditism occurs when the individual changes its sex at some point in its life. In particular, a sequential hermaphrodite produces eggs and sperm at different stages in life. Species that can undergo these changes from one sex to another do so as a normal event within their reproductive cycle that is usually cued by either social structure or the achievement of a certain age or size.
  In animals, the different types of change are male to female, female to male, female to hermaphrodite, and male to hermaphrodite. Both protogynous and protandrous hermaphroditism allow the organism to switch between functional male and functional female. These various types of sequential hermaphroditism may indicate that there is no advantage based on the original sex of an individual organism. Those that change gonadal sex can have both female and male germ cells in the gonads or can change from one complete gonadal type to the other during their last life stage.
context_section_description: In the context of the plant sexuality of flowering plants (angiosperms), there are two forms of dichogamy: protogyny—female function precedes male function—and protandry—male function precedes female function.
caption: Protandrous flowers of Aeonium undulatum
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