Cotyledon (redirected from Cotyledons)

cotyledon (kŏt'əlēd`ən), in botany, a leaf of the embryo of a seed. The embryos of flowering plants, or angiosperms, usually have either one cotyledon (the monocots) or two (the dicots). Seeds of gymnosperms, such as pines, may have numerous cotyledons. In some seeds the cotyledons are flat and leaflike; in others, such as the bean, the cotyledons store the seed's food reserve for germination and are fleshy. In most plants the cotyledons emerge above the soil with the seedling as it grows. They differ in form from the true leaves.

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cotyledon

Monocotyledon (internal structures of a corn seed with stages of germination). Nutrients are stored …

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Seed leaf within the embryo of a seed that provides energy and nutrients for the developing seedling. After the first true leaves have formed, they wither and fall off. Flowering plants whose embryos have a single cotyledon are grouped as monocots, or monocotyledonous plants; embryos with two cotyledons are grouped as dicots, or dicotyledonous plants. Unlike flowering plants, gymnosperms usually have several cotyledons rather than one or two.

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cotyledon

1. Botany a simple embryonic leaf in seed-bearing plants, which, in some species, forms the first green leaf after germination

2. Anatomy a tuft of villi on the mammalian placenta

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cotyledon [‚käd·əl′ēd·ən]

(botany)

The first leaf of the embryo of seed plants.

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Cotyledon 

one of the first leaves of a plant. The cotyledons form in the seed on the not yet differentiated body of the developing embryo. They often differ sharply in shape, internal structure, and, sometimes, function from subsequent leaves that arise on the growing point of the shoot. Gymnospermous plants have two to 15 cotyledons, dicotyledonous plants two cotyledons, and most monocotyledonous plants one cotyledon. When there is aboveground sprouting of dicotyledon seeds (for example, beans), green cotyledons emerge at the soil surface and for some time perform the functions of green leaves. In peas, oak, walnut, and a number of other plants the cotyledons upon sprouting remain in the seed and die after consumption of nutrient reserves. During the sprouting of many monocotyledons, the sheath portion of the cotyledon emerges from the seed, but the apex remains for some time in the endosperm, functioning as an organ of absorption. The same function is performed by the scutellum that remains in the seed of cereal grains; many botanists consider the scutellum to be a cotyledon.