Flower stigma

Saffron Crocetin C20H24O4 Crocus flower stigma (antiquity)... 

The most important considerations in marketing and estabUshing a crop from a new source are constancy of supply and quahty. Eor some spices, it is difficult to reduce labor costs, as some crops demand individual manual treatment even if grown on dedicated plantations. Only the individual stigmas of the saffron flower must be picked cinnamon bark must be cut, peeled, and roUed in strips mature unopened clove buds must be picked by hand and orchid blossoms must be hand pollinated to produce the vanilla bean. 

Saffron is the tiny stigma at the center of the crocus flower, Crocus sativus. Because each stigma is plucked from the flower by hand, saffron is one of the most expensive spices in use today. 

Figure 10. Tissue specific expression of p-subunit proteins in floral tissues. Stage 3 (fully opened) flowers were collected, dissected and cell wall proteins (5 pgm) from the indicated organs isolated and analyzed for p-subunit antigen. Note the high level of expression in stigma/style and anthers/pollen and restriction of the larger antigen to stigma/style tissues. PGl lane, 1 gg of purified fruit PGl protein.

The composition of cutin shows species specificity although cutin from most plants contains different types of mixtures of the C16 and C18 family of acids. Composition of cutin can vary with the anatomical location. For example, cutin preparations from fruit, leaf, stigma, and flower petal of Malus pumila contain 73%, 35%, 14%, and 12%, respectively, of hydroxy and hydroxy-epoxy C18 monomers [23]. In general, fast-growing plant organs have higher content of C16 family of monomers. 

Food and feed additives do not stand back with regard to the diversity of products. They extend from minerals, mainly calcium, phosphorus, and potassium, to amino acids, vitamins and natural spices. All in all, there are several hundred individual compounds used as feed and food additives. The most expensive product is saffron, made from the stigmas of the saffron crocus flower. The yearly production amounts to about 700,000 kg, and the spice is retailing for about 2500/kg. Amino acids play a big role the largest product is monosodium glutamate (MSG), with a yearly production of 1.5-2 million tons and a price of about 2.30 per kilogram, followed by L-lysine (850,000 tons/ 1.50/kg), D,L-methionine (600,000 tons/ 3/kg), L-threonine (85,000 tons, 3.40/kg), and L-tryptophane (1750 tons/ 24/kg). Major producers of... 

Carpels superior, free or only slightly united at the base, or gynoecium reduced to one carpel with one stigma, or if syncarpous then small herbs with spikelike racemes of small ebracteate flowers, or aquatics with inferior unisexual flowers with ovules spread all over the inner surface of the ovary. 

Variations of the life cycle occur. For example, a process called apomixis leads to asexual formation of seed.469 In many plants, including maize, separate flowers form the ovule and the pollen. This is one mechanism for avoiding inbreeding.470 In many plants systems of self-incompatibility have evolved.471 In some, e.g., Arabidopsis and other crucifers, pollen germination is disrupted unless it falls on a stigma possessing a different allele-specific receptor. In other cases development of the pollen tube is disrupted at a later stage. In maize and in more than 150 other... 

Folklore Spanish missionaries in South America regarded the flower of this herb as a symbol of Christ s passion, the three stigmas representing the nails, the five anthers the wounds and the ten sepals the apostles present. The herb was used in native North American medicine, especially by the Houma tribe, who put it into drinking water as a tonic. It became popular as a treatment for insomnia in the nineteenth century and was included in the US National Formulary from 1916 to 1936 (Bown, 2003 British Herbal Medicine Association, 1983 Giuenwald el al, 2002 Hutchens, 1973 Tierra, 1998). 

In the following experiments the pollen, a rich source of auxin and gibberel-lins, was removed from the flowers so that the influence of different treatments on the ovaries could be studied. The flowers of Vitis vinifera are usually self-pollin-ated—i.e., the pollen usually falls on the stigma of the same flower. Emasculation experiments were performed as soon as five to ten calyptras had fallen from the... 

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