Topic 16.3 · Core and Supplement
Sexual Reproduction in Plants
Flowering-plant reproduction is one continuous pathway, not three unrelated topics — a flower is built to be pollinated, pollination sets up fertilisation, and fertilisation is what a germinating seed is the result of. Reading the three pages below in that order keeps the whole pathway connected instead of three separate memorised lists.
Cambridge tests this pathway in stages. First, you need to identify and draw the structures of an insect-pollinated flower and connect each one to its function. Then comes pollination itself — how insects and wind move pollen differently, and at Supplement level, how self-pollination and cross-pollination differ in their effect on genetic variation, plus the pollen tube that actually delivers a pollen nucleus to an ovule. Finally, once fertilisation has happened, a seed still needs the right conditions before it will germinate, and Cambridge expects you to be able to investigate those conditions, not just recite them.
This is also the part of the syllabus most likely to hand you an unfamiliar flower or an unfamiliar experimental setup and ask you to reason from structure to function, rather than recall a memorised fact. Understanding why each structure and each pollination adaptation exists — not just what it’s called — is what actually carries across to a diagram or a specimen you haven’t seen before.
The three pages in this section
| Page | Level | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Flower structure | Core | Every labelled part of an insect-pollinated flower and the function that earns each one its own mark. |
| Pollination and fertilisation in plants | Core + Supplement | Insect versus wind pollination, self versus cross-pollination, and the pollen tube that finally makes fertilisation happen. |
| Seed germination | Core | The three conditions a seed actually needs, why each one matters, and how to design a fair test for them. |
Core or Supplement?
Flower structure, the definition of pollination, insect- and wind-pollination adaptations, fertilisation in a flowering plant, and the conditions needed for germination are all Core. Self-pollination and cross-pollination and their effects on variation, along with the detail of pollen tube growth, are Supplement only. Both Supplement points build directly on the Core pollination and fertilisation content, so they’re covered on the same page rather than a separate one.