The structure containing food for the growing plant embryo is called?

Question

science class

Answer 1

it is called cotyledon

Cotyledons: The embryo leaf or leaves of seed plants that usually stores or absorbs food in a young seedling; in angiosperms (flowering plants) the following distinction is made with respect to the cotyledons: dicots have two cotyledons and monocots have one cotyledon.

Answer 2

i) A growing plant embryo is located in a seed.

ii) There are two types of seeds , namely ENDOSPERMIC and

NON - ENDOSPERMIC.

iii) In the Endospermic seeds the food for the growing embryo is

NOT located in the cotyledons , in fact they are not well

developed at all. Instead the food is stored in a part called

ENDOSPERM. Hence the name 'Endospermic Seeds'.

Examples of such seeds are as follows-:

1) Coconut - In this case the food rich endosperm is the

source of famous coconut oil.

2) Wheat, Rice Oats and all the cereals known to mankind -:

In this case the endosperm is the rich source of starch,

carbohydrates, but a poor source of protins. The mankind

subsists on these.

The above two examples are from MONOCOT group but

the single cotyledon DOES NOT store any food .

It just passes the food from the endosperm to the growing

embryo.

3) Castor seeds;- the endosperm stores food in the form of

proteins and oil. It is a rich source of the castor oil.

It is a DICOTYLEDONOUS plant. Coteyledons do not store

food at all, eventhough they are present.


NON - ENDOSPERMIC SEEDS:- In this type , the

endosperm is entirely absent and non existant.

The food for the growing embryo is stored in the

COTYLEDONS only. They are ,therefore well developed,thick

and fleshy.

All the pulses ( Legumes, peas and beans) are the examples.

The food stored is a rich source of proteins for mankind.

These are all DICOTYLEDONOUS plants.


From the above, one will realise, I hope, the importance of

cereals as well as the pulses in the diet of mankind!


Edit---::: To put the whole thing in a Nut shell---

All the plant /tree seeds that we all know contain a single embryo ( future plant) .

This embryo always has the following integral parts--

1) Radicle -- the future root system.

2) Plumule -- The future shoot system. And

3) Cotyledon / s --- They are one or two in number and very

often, but not always , store reserve food for the growing embryo

i.e. radicle and plumule. ( example all pulses and Mango seeds.)

Cotyledon / s are always present ; whether functional or not!


A seed may also show one additional part i.e. Endosperm.

This Endosperm DOES NOT constitute a part of the embryo.

When present it always stores reserve food for the growing

embryo. The Seed is then becomes ENDOSPERMIC.

All cereals , Coconut and Castor are the examples.

When the endosperm is absent the seed automatically

becomes NON - ENDOSPERMIC ( Pulses etc.mentioned

above)

Answer 3

The cotyledons of the seed.