wildflowers
Posted by Thomas Hardt on April 1, 2008
Q: How do you tell the difference between petals and sepals?
Thanks
Tom
Habitat: field/meadow
State: West Virginia
Habitat: field/meadow
A: Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org has a nice description of what the petals and sepals are on a flower and also notes that there are both typical and atypical flowers that make these differences a bit difficult at times. Their information will better than what I can share.
On most flowers you can readily differentiate between the petals and sepals and for those where it's not obvious, you may just need to learn which ones those are by trial and error. You may also want to check out some good flower anatomy pictures so you have a firm idea what the two look like and are located. So often in nature, there just isn't one description/definition that covers it all but then, I guess that 's what makes it all the more challenging and fun. Hope this helps a bit.
John Wiessinger ( April 2, 2008)