What does dicotyledon mean?
A dicotyledon is a flowering plant whose embryo carries two seed leaves, known as cotyledons, which are often visible as the first pair of leaves when a seedling emerges from the soil. Along with the monocotyledons, or plants with a single seed leaf, the dicotyledons traditionally formed one of the two great divisions of the angiosperms. Familiar examples include beans, peas, sunflowers, roses, oaks, and maples — plants that typically also show netted leaf veins, flower parts in fours or fives, and a ring of vascular tissue in the stem. In everyday speech and much botanical writing, the word is usually shortened to 'dicot'. Although modern classification systems based on DNA evidence have replaced the traditional dicot category with more precise groupings such as the eudicots, the term remains widely used in education, horticulture, and general botany to describe this familiar and diverse group of plants.
nounA flowering plant (angiosperm) whose embryo has two seed leaves, or cotyledons. The dicotyledons form one of the two traditional major divisions of the flowering plants, the other being the monocotyledons.
- Any flowering plant whose embryo has two cotyledons; in modern classification, largely corresponding to the eudicots.
"Beans, oaks, and roses are all dicotyledons, each seed carrying a pair of embryonic leaves."
"Botanists distinguish dicotyledons from monocotyledons by examining the number of seed leaves in the embryo."
"The garden's broad-leaved herbs were nearly all dicotyledons, their leaves showing the netted venation typical of the group."
Regular plural; used when referring to multiple plants of this group or the group as a class.
"Most of the trees in temperate forests are dicotyledons."
Every bean sprout you've ever seen splitting into two little leaves at its tip is a dicotyledon showing off its defining trait.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of dicotyledon
The word dicotyledon derives from New Latin, combining the Greek elements di- meaning 'two' and kotyledōn meaning 'cup-shaped hollow' or 'seed leaf'. It entered English usage in the early eighteenth century as botanists formalized the distinction between plants with one and two seed leaves. Its closest relative is monocotyledon, formed with the same root but the Greek prefix mon(o)- meaning 'one', while cotyledon itself survives in English both as a botanical term and as the name of a genus of succulent plants.
Related word forms
How dicotyledon is actually used
Dicotyledon is a technical term used chiefly in botany and plant science; in everyday speech and even much scientific writing, the shortened forms 'dicot' and 'monocot' are more common. The older division of flowering plants into monocotyledons and dicotyledons has been substantially revised by molecular phylogenetics, with 'eudicots' now the preferred clade name for most former dicotyledons.
Easily confused with dicotyledon
A monocotyledon is a flowering plant whose embryo bears only one seed leaf, whereas a dicotyledon bears two.