A monocot flower

A monocot root

Class Monocotyledonae, the monocots, make up the minority of the angiosperms. There are 65,000 species of monocots, including the grasses and the grains. The common name of monocots is due to the presence of only one seed leaf - a cotyledon, a tiny leaf in the plant embryo. During germination, the cotyledon will use its enzymes to digest stored food, allowing initial plant growth.

There are several other distinctive features of monocots. In the leaves, veins are parallel to each other, and in the stems of the plant, vascular tissues form a complex arrangement of bundles. The flowers of monocots have their petals and other structures in patterns of multiples of three. Finally, the root system of a monocot is fibrous, with many branches that spread out right below the soil surface.

The life cycles of monocots are similar to those of dicots, the other class of angiosperms, though there are some differences that occur between the germination of the seed and the growth of the plant. In monocots, the first organ to develop is the embryonic root, which is soon followed by the embryonic shoot, the beginning of the above-ground plant. To break through the soil for the first time, a protective sheath first develops around the embryonic shoot and pushes up through the soil. Then, the shoot can grow up into the air without first breaking in the hard, abrasive soil.

Table courtesy of 21st Century Biology

	Monocot	Dicot
Examples	Chives, corn, palm, pineapple	Arabidopsis, peanuts, spinach
Pollen Structure	Single pored	Three pored
Flower Parts	Multiples of three	Multiples of four or five
Leaf Veins	Parallel- ladder like	Reticulated- net like
Vascular Arrangement	Bundles scattered	Arranged in a ring in the cortex
Secondary Growth	Absent	Present
Root Development	Adventitious w/ taproot	Develops from the radicle w/ fibrous root
Number of Cotyledons	One	Two