A seed is a small embryonic plant enclosed in a
covering called the seed coat, usually with some stored food. It is the product
of the ripened ovule of gymnosperm and angiosperm plants which occurs after
fertilization and some growth within the motherplant. The formation of the seed
completes the process of reproduction in seed plants (started with the
development of flowers and pollination), with the embryo developed from the
zygote and the seed coat from the integuments of the ovule.
Seeds have been an important development in the reproduction and spread of
flowering plants, relative to more primitive plants like mosses, ferns and
liverworts, which do not have seeds and use other means to propagate themselves.
This can be seen by the success of seed plants (both gymnosperms and
angiosperms) in dominating biological niches on land, from forests to grasslands
both in hot and cold climates.
Plant and Beyond is
a Licensed Distributor forr Nature Hills Nursery
Art & Shirley Atkinson
340 Crest St. #54
Sublimity, OR. 97385
ŠPlants and Beyond Last up dated
Saturday, August 11, 2007