6. Read and translate the text “a wonderful flower”, find in the text sentences in:

a) the Present Simple (Indefinite) Active;

b) the Past Simple (Indefinite) Active / Passive;

c) the Past Continuous (Progressive) Active / Passive;

d) the Future Simple (Indefinite) Active;

e) the Future Continuous (Progressive) Active.

A wonderful flower

Today Nick Brown has a lecture about the structure of the flower. As we already know students come to the lectures of botany with great pleasure and interest. They like the specific manner in which Nick’s lectures are represented. Today isn’t an exception. Nick forestalls theoretical material with a gripping legend about a very unusual flower. Let’s read it altogether.

Many years ago there lived in the Netherlands in the outskirts of the Hague, an unremarkable man. His name was Hans. He was a shoemaker by trade and quite a good one. The Dutch, as you know, are very fond of flowers, and they are particularly famous for their tulips. And Hans was no exception. Different sorts of tulips were grown by him. One day he saw an unusual tulip in his garden. It was black. Hans was very proud of his wonderful flower. Soon the news of the unique flower became known all over the country. A lot of people wanted to buy it, but the shoemaker – gardener didn’t want even to hear about it. One day at the moment when Hans was very carefully watering his treasure, some people came and offered him much money for the black tulip. Hans thought for a few days and said that he would sell the bulb. And no wonder. At those times, precisely in 1670 one could buy a few houses with this money. As soon as the strangers got the bulb, they threw it on the ground and began stabbing it until nothing was left of it. “What are you doing, are you mad?” cried the shocked Hans. “You are fool”, was the answer, “we were ready to pay you twice as much. The thing is that we also have a black tulip, but we don’t want any competitors in this country!” When Hans heard that he had missed the chance to get twice as much money than the money he was given he went mad. Well, as time passed black tulips became quite regular flowers. The best – known sorts are called “The queen of night”, “The black beauty, “The black magic”, and “The black hero”. Who knows maybe the inventive Dutch will think out more unusual flowers in future?

“And what do you think is so unusual about the black tulips?” asks Nick his students.

No answers. “OK, it will be your home task for our next seminar. Now let’s examine the structure of a flower. We know that the flower is a part of the plants called angiosperms that holds the plant's reproductive organs e. g. a flower is the part of the plant that makes the seeds. All plants produce flowers for the same reason: to make seeds so another plant can grow. Reproductive organs are formed from buds. The flower is attached to the tip of a stem at a point called the receptacle. The main parts of a flower are the carpels and stamens. These parts are often found in the center of the flower. There are egg cells in the carpel and pollen cells in the stamen. All flowers have four basic parts: sepals, petals, carpels and stamen.

Sepals: a group of leafy like parts at the base of the flower altogether called the calyx.

Petals: the colorful parts of the flower arranged within the sepals - altogether called the corolla.

Stamens: the male part of the flower within the petals or corolla. They contain sacs holding pollen, the male sex cells and are called anther sacs.

Carpels: the female part of the flower at its very center altogether called the ovary and also the pistil. At the bottom of the pistil are the eggs or ovules which are the female sex cells. When these tiny ovules become fertilized with pollen they form seeds. The ovary then develops into fruit. Different flowers have different numbers and shapes of these parts.

The number of flower parts differs from flower group to flower group and is but one of the ways to tell the different plants apart. In the monocots, or plants whose seeds have one seed leaf, the parts tend to come in groups of threes. In dicots or plants with seeds with more than one seed leaf, the parts tend to come in twos or fours or five. Flowers can be without stamens or without carpels or can have both.

Our lecture is over, any questions?” finishes Nick.

One of the students stands up and says: “Everything is clear, no questions, but your lecture inspired me so much that I know for sure what I will be doing at this time tomorrow: I’ll be searching information about black tulips in the library”.