Definition of "stamen" [sta•men]

• The pollen-producing reproductive organ of a flower, usually consisting of a filament and an anther. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "The first row consists of one posterior stamen, which is generally perfect, and two abortive stamens incorporated with the labellum."
• "It is equally correct to call a stamen a contracted petal, and a petal an expanded stamen, for no one of the organs is the type of the others, but all equally are varieties of a single abstract plant-appendage."
• "To assert that a stamen is a metamorphosed leaf means, if it means anything, that in the long sweep of time the leaf has by slow or sudden gradations changed its character through successive generations, until the offspring, so to speak, of a true leaf has become a stamen."