The following detailed definitions explaining the prinicple parts of the hosta are contributed by Ben J.M.Zonneveld.

PLANT

A Hosta crown consist of several thick rhizomes with thin roots attached, with each division ending in a vegetative bud (tip, eye) enclosed in leafy scales that in spring gives rise to a shoot (sprout) that develops into leaves with a leafblade and a leafstalk (petiole) and in summer can form a flowerscape wich after its demise (cutting) might send up new growth from the eyes around the formergrowing point.

INFLORESECENSE

A Hosta has a flowerstalk (peduncle, scape) of which the flowering part (a raceme, sometimes a brached raceme=panicle) contains small (large), green (lilac) leaflike structures (bracts) covering the flowerbuds that later via a short (up to 1 inch) stalk (pedicel) develop into flowers.

FLOWER

A hosta flower with 6 connected tepals forming the perianth, has

1. a male part with six stamens consisting of a white thread (filament) at the end of which there are the anthers containing the yellow pollen and;
2. a female part with a single pistil where a often curled-upwarts, sticky stigma receiving the pollen is connected via the white style to the ovary with its eggcells (ovules), that after fertilization develops into a pod with three segments (carpels) at least 16 seeds in each carpel.

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