Figure 2.

Quercus suber female and male flowers in different developmental stages used in the RNA-seq and a description of the unique and differentially expressed gene between libraries. (A) Early and (B) late stages of female flower development used in pools 1F and 2F, respectively. (C) Early and (D) late stages of male flower development used in pools 1M and 2M, respectively. (Cf) female bud enclosed by protective scales; (Df) female reddish bud with open scales; (Ef) elongation of the spike axis and the emergency of the first pair of flowers; (Ff) female flower showing distinct, erect, yellow stigmas with curved pinkish/brownish tips; (Ff2) flower with shining yellow and viscous pattern stigmas in clear divergent position; (Gf) female flower with closed stigmas that lost the receptivity, exhibiting a dark brown color. (Cm) catkin with red round shape due to the tight clustering of the flowers; (Dm) elongated cluster of male flowers; (Dm2) pendent catkin with some individualized flowers; (Em) male flowers with the anthers individualized; (Fm) flowers with individualized green/yellow anthers where pollen shedding begins; (Gm) catkin with male flowers in full anthesis. (E) Venn diagram indicating the number of exclusive and shared transcripts of early and late developmental stages of Quercus suber flower. Four EST projects were generated from four-specific RNA pools, two for female flowers (1F and 2F) and two for male flowers (1M and 2M), covering either early (1F and 1M) or the late (2F and 2M) developmental stages (Rocheta et al., 2014).