You might think flowers don't have much choice about who they mate with, given they are rooted to the ground and can't move.
But when scientists from Nagoya, Japan used powerful microscopes to study the fertilization process, they were surprised to find the female part of a flowering plant (ovules) could repel sperm from pollen and direct them to nearby unfertilized ovules in the same plant.
First, though, it's important to understand how reproduction in flowering plants works. Just like animals, flowering plants engage in sexual reproduction where male and female parts come together and create new life.
In both flowering plants and animals, these reproductive cells, also known as gametes, contain half the number of chromosomes found in normal adult cells. The fusion of gametes restores the normal number of chromosomes and allows the development of an embryo that can eventually develop into an adult, like the plants and people you see around you.