Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The seed of a vascular plant is a small package produced in a fruit or cone after the union of male and female reproductive cells. All fully developed seeds contain an embryo and, in most plant species some store of food reserves, wrapped in a seed coat. Dormant seeds are viable seeds that do not germinate because they require specific internal ...
Seed dormancy has two main functions: the first is synchronizing germination with the optimal conditions for survival of the resulting seedling; the second is spreading germination of a batch of seeds over time so a catastrophe (e.g. late frosts, drought, herbivory) does not result in the death of all offspring of a plant (bet-hedging). [33]
Plant embryonic development, also plant embryogenesis, is a process that occurs after the fertilization of an ovule to produce a fully developed plant embryo.This is a pertinent stage in the plant life cycle that is followed by dormancy and germination. [1]
As this happens, the resulting cells will organize so that one end becomes the first root while the other end forms the tip of the shoot. In seed plants, the embryo will develop one or more "seed leaves" . By the end of embryogenesis, the young plant will have all the parts necessary to begin in its life. [citation needed]
The angiosperms ("vessel seeds") are the only group to fully enclose the seed, in a carpel. [citation needed] Fully enclosed seeds opened up a new pathway for plants to follow: that of seed dormancy. The embryo, completely isolated from the external atmosphere and hence protected from desiccation, could survive some years of drought before ...
Modern seed sizes range from 0.0001 mg in orchid seeds to 42 kilograms (92 lb 10 oz) in double coconuts. [7] [2] Larger seeds have larger quantities of metabolic reserves in their embryo and endosperm available for the seedling [8] than smaller seeds, and often aid establishment under low resource availability. [9]
This page was last edited on 26 October 2016, at 05:16 (UTC).; Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License; additional terms may apply.
In angiosperms, as the seed develops after fertilisation, so does the surrounding carpel, its walls thickening or hardening, developing colours or nutrients that attract animals or birds. This new entity with its dormant seeds is the fruit, whose functions are protecting the seed and dispersing it. In some cases, androecium and gynaecium may be ...