Stigma (botany) Stigma (botany) The stigma (plural: stigmata) is the receptive tip of a carpel, or of several fused carpels, in the gynoecium of a flower. The stigma, together with the style and ovary comprises the pistil, which in turn is part of the gynoecium or female reproductive organ of a plant. The stigma forms the distal portion of the style or stylodia. The stigma is composed of , the cells which are receptive to pollen. These may be restricted to the apex of the style or, especially in wind pollinated species, cover a wide surface. The stigma receives pollen and it
Plant life-form or tree. Conversely, unrelated species may share a life-form through convergent evolution. While taxonomic classification is concerned with the production of natural classifications (being natural understood either in philosophical basis for pre-evolutionary thinking, or phylogenetically as non-polyphyletic), plant-life form classifications uses other criteria than naturalness, like morphology, physiology and ecology. "Life-form" and "growth-form" are essentially synonymous concepts, despite attempts to restrict the meaning of growth-form to types differing in shoot architecture. Most life form schemes are concerned with vascular plants only. "Plant construction types" may be used in a broader sense to encompass "planktophytes", "benthophytes" (mainly algae) and terrestrial plants.