Monoecious

Monoecious

The term monoecious, in botany, refers to the sexual reproduction system of plants.
The term monoecius comes from the union of mono- and the Greek term oîkos ‘house’, here in the sense of ‘seat’.
The term monoecious indicates that the male (stamens) and female (pistil) reproductive organs are present on the same plant but in separate flowers, differently from what occurs in dioecious plants in which the flowers are found on two different or hermaphrodite individuals, which have , therefore, both reproductive organs in the same flower.
A monoecious plant therefore bears flowers of both sexes on the same individual, in distinct apparatuses; the male flowers, also called staminiferous flowers and the female ones, also called carpelliferous flowers.
Furthermore, if on the same plant there are also hermaphrodite flowers in addition to unisexual flowers, the following types will be obtained:
– andromonoecious, with hermaphroditic and male flowers;
– gynomonoecious, with hermaphroditic and feminine flowers;
– trimonoecious, with hermaphroditic flowers, male and female flowers.
Furthermore, it is not rare that within the same species or even in different subspecies there may be variability of these conditions.
Among the monoecious plants we mention, for example, the Larix decidua and the Zea mays.