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Questions and Answers: 2018

Question: If a flowering plant has no sepals or no petals how to do tell which is which?

• Question

  If a flowering plant has no sepals or no petals how to do tell which is which?

  Answer

  Dear mcyr1313, many species of plants do not require flower or fruits to identify them. We rely on their vegetative characteristics, such as leaf arrangement, leaf blade margin, presence/absence of hairs, leaf length, bark color (for woody species), and a host of other characters. For example, even without flowers we can tell different kinds of roses apart because they have different shapes of prickles, different numbers of leaflets, different hypanthia shapes, different kinds of hairs on the sepals and hypanthia, etc. Some plants needs flowers and/or fruits for identification, but many don't.