by: Katie Kam

Thanks for traveling here! This web site is a culmination of 8 weeks of a Botany 485 project for Dr. Jim Manhart of the Texas A&M Botany Department. Below you will link to images of the littlest parts of flowers such as the stamens, achenes, and florets that range in size from less than 1mm to over 2cm. The project involved dissecting the flower (sometimes hard to do for the flower was so beautiful), examining the parts, photographing the parts with a 35mm camera, loading the slides on to the computer through Adobe Photoshop, making a database of the flowers and then creating the web page. These are only a fraction of the flowers photographed- Dr. Manhart and others have almost 3000 images on a web site for educational and classification purposes, which is worth a visit. As for myself, I am graduating with honors this August with a Biology major and Chemistry and English minor. I intend to continue my studies into graduate school with a masters degree in community and regional planning. This field of study combines ecology, human psychology, architecture, economics and political science for the purpose of making our cities and environment better for humans and other living organisms. Many theories exist pertaining to how humans should structure and change the land and city. Much criticism is geared towards suburbia with its rows of cookie-cutter houses and strip malls. I agree with the criticisms. Currently, people live their lives in a fenced -in house with a daily ritual of driving to work and doing weekend shopping for material goods, many of which are unnecessary. Children and teens grow up believing that making money is for the purpose of purchasing stuff at the mall or investing in a car that would not really be needed if communities were planned correctly. Traffic jams contradict man's belief that they are rational beings, for both environmental, time and planning reasons. The root of these problems lies in unimaginative, destructive development of the environment. How many have actually been to a unique city? All towns and cities contain a mall or two, a number of fast-food restaurants, several areas of defined suburbia, a concrete-ridden downtown and miles of expansive, and usually choked, highways. I've lived in Austin for fourteen years and have gradually seen it converted from a beautiful hill-country city to an ugly city of shopping centers, 4 story -high highways, and traffic. In fact, last week I saw a brown haze hovering over Austin, like Dallas or LA would have. As a student of planning, I want to: bring nature back to the city so it will be respected as a living being and not a peice of "undeveloped" land, encourage "community" in planning by creating other activities to do other than shopping, such as community gardens, parks, mountain biking and hiking trails, libraries, nature centers, and musuems, and bring logic back to planning, to where grocery stores are within a walking distance and where there are not 5 movie theatres within a one mile radius ( as the case is in Austin). Of course, people will worry about how such changes might hurt the economy, so I will research and prove that sustainable communities, as they are sometimes called, actually create a better economy for they consider aesthetics, ecology and future generations. If planning reduces the need for a car, then people will have more money to invest in global travel, education, non-profit organizations and their children. With graduate work, I want to go beyond identifying the problems, and actually start changing the morphology of our cities.

The Flowers (Images may be accessed here or in the Digital Image Library

Scientific Name	Family	Description	Location	Status
Anisacanthus wrightii	Acanthaceae	Stamens and gynoecium		Cultivated
Asclepias oenotheroides	Asclepiadaceae	Longitudinal Section of flower	Wellborn, TX	Native
Asclepias viridis	Asclepiadaceae	Longitudinal section of flower	Wellborn, TX	Native
Boltonia diffusa	Asteraceae	Head parts	College Station,TX	Native
Bradburia hirta	Asteraceae	Longitudinal section of head	College Station,TX	Native
Bradburia hirta	Asteraceae	Head parts	College Station,TX	Native
Chaetopappa asteroides	Asteraceae	Head parts	Wellborn, TX	Native
Chaetopappa asteroides	Asteraceae	Head	Wellborn, TX	Native
Coreopsis basalis	Asteraceae	Head parts	College Station,TX	Native
Coreopsis tinctoria	Asteraceae	Longitudinal Section of head	College Station,TX	Native
Coreopsis tinctoria	Asteraceae	Head parts	College Station,TX	Native
Echinacea purpurea	Asteraceae	Longitudinal section of head		Cultivated
Echinacea purpurea	Asteraceae	Head parts		Cultivated
Eupatorium serotinum	Asteraceae	Head parts and longitudinal section of head	College Station,TX	Native
Eupatorium serotinum	Asteraceae	Head parts and longitudinal section of head	College Station,TX	Native
Gaillardia aestivalis	Asteraceae	Longitudinal section of head	College Station,TX	Native
Gaillardia aestivalis	Asteraceae	Head parts	College Station,TX	Native
Gaillardia pulchella	Asteraceae	Disk florets and achene	College Station,TX	Native
Gaillardia pulchella	Asteraceae	Head parts	College Station,TX	Native
Gaillardia pulchella	Asteraceae	Longitudinal section of head	College Station,TX	Native
Helenium amarum	Asteraceae	Longitudinal section of head	College Station,TX	Native
Helenium amarum	Asteraceae	Head Parts	Wellborn, TX	Native
Heterotheca pilosa	Asteraceae	Head parts	College Station,TX	Native
Liatris squarrosa	Asteraceae	Longitudinal section of mature head	Wellborn, TX	Native
Liatris squarrosa	Asteraceae	Longitudinal section of head	Wellborn, TX	Native
Liatris squarrosa	Asteraceae	Head parts	Wellborn, TX	Native
Palafoxia rosea	Asteraceae	Longitudinal section of head	Wellborn, TX	Native
Palafoxia rosea	Asteraceae	Head parts	Wellborn, TX	Native
Ratibida columnifera	Asteraceae	Longitudinal section of head	College Station, TX	Native
Ratibida columnifera	Asteraceae	Head parts	College Station, TX	Native
Ratibida columnifera	Asteraceae	Cross section of head	College Station, TX	Native
Ratibida columnifera	Asteraceae	Head parts	College Station, TX	Native
Rudbeckia hirta	Asteraceae	Longitudinal section of head	College Station,TX	Native
Rudbeckia hirta	Asteraceae	Head parts	College Station,TX	Native
Verbesina encelioides	Asteraceae	Head parts	Washington on the Brazos	Native
Vernonia baldwinii	Asteraceae	Longitudinal section of head	Washington on the Brazos	Native
Cleistocactus smaragdiflores	Cactaceae	Longitudinal section of flower		Cultivated
Unknown	Cactaceae	Mature fruit		Cultivated
Kalanchoe	Crassulaceae	Longitudinal section of flower		Cultivated
Kalanchoe	Crassulaceae	Flower dissection		Cultivated
Dalea multiflora	Fabaceae	Flower Dissection	Wellborn, TX	Native
Monarda punctata	Lamiaceae	Flower	Wellborn, TX	Native
Cuphea	Lythraceae	Longitudinal section of flower		Cultivated
Rhexia mariana	Melastomataceae	Longitudinal section of flower	College Station, TX	Native
Rhexia mariana	Melastomataceae	Longitudinal section of fruit	College Station, TX	Native
Castilleja indivisa	Scrophulariaceae	Flower dissection	Wellborn, TX	Native
Castilleja indivisa	Scrophulariaceae	Flower dissection	Wellborn, TX	Native