Seeds

A seed, referred to as a kernel in some plants, is a small embryonic plant enclosed in a covering called the seed coat, usually with some stored food.

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Seeds come in many different sizes, shapes, colors and forms. Seeds hold inside of them the embryos which can grow and become a new plant.

Seed, term applied to the ripened ovule of a seed plant before germination. Seeds of the angiosperm, or flowering plant, differ from those of the gymnosperm, or conifer and related plants, in being enclosed in the ovary that later forms a fruit; gymnosperm seeds lie exposed on the scales of the cones.During the process of fertilization the pollen tube enters the ovule through a small opening known as the micropyle.

One of the two sperm nuclei in the pollen tube unites with the egg cell in the ovule to form a zygote, which develops into the embryo. In flowering plants the other I sperm nucleus unites with two polar nuclei present in the embryo sac to form an endosperm nucleus, which later produces the nutritive endosperm tissue surrounding the embryo in the seed. In gymnosperms, the endosperm is formed from the tissue of the embryo sac itself. The nucellus, or megasporangium, is the tissue composing the main part of the ovule; it is partially digested during the development of the embryo and endosperm tissue. Surrounding the seed is a hard, tough seed coat, derived from the integument of the ovule and known as the testa. In flowering plants a second seed coat occurs within the testa; this second coat is thin and membranous and is known as the tegmen. Some seeds, in addition, have projects from the seed coat that serve to aid in the absorption of water when the seed is about to germinate or that merely form an additional protective coating about the seed. In almost every seed, the micropyle through which the pollen tube entered the ovule persists as a small opening in the seed coat. Close to the micropyle in flowering plants, a stalk, or funiculus, attaches the seed to the placenta on the inside of the fruit wall. When the seed is removed, a small scar, known as the hilum, marks the former attachment of the stalk.

In a few plants, such as the orchids, the embryo is a small, undifferentiated mass of cells until after the seed has parted from the parent plant; during the period between separation from the parent plant and eventual germination, the undifferentiated cells develop into an embryonic root, bud, stalk, and leaf. In most other plants this development occurs prior to seed dispersal: the embryonic root, or radicle, usually grows toward the micropyle; the embryonic bud, called plumule, or epicotyl, is at the end of the embryo opposite to the radicle; the embryonic stem, or hypocotyl, connects the radicle with the seed leaves, or cotyledons. In gymnosperms, several cotyledons are usually present; among angiosperms two great groups of plants exist, one group having but one cotyledon in the seed and known as the monocotyledons, and the other with two cotyledons and known as dicotyledons. The cotyledons serve as centers of absorption and storage, drawing nutritive material from the endosperm. The cotyledons of many plants, such as the sunflower, function as primary photosynthetic organs after germination and before the development of foliage leaves from the plumule.