1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Dicotyledons

DICOTYLEDONS, in botany, the larger of the two great classes of angiosperms, embracing most of the common flower-bearing plants. The name expresses the most universal character of the class, the importance of which was first noticed by John Ray, namely, the presence of a pair of seed-leaves or cotyledons, in the plantlet or embryo contained in the seed. The embryo is generally surrounded by a larger or smaller amount of foodstuff (endosperm) which serves to nourish it in its development to form a seedling when the seed germinates; frequently, however, as in pea or bean and their allies, the whole of the nourishment for future use is stored up in the cotyledons themselves, which then become thick and fleshy. In germination of the seed the root of the embryo (radicle) grows out to get a holdfast for the plant; this is generally followed by the growth of the short stem immediately above the root, the so-called “hypocotyl,” which carries up the cotyledons above the ground, where they spread to the light and become the first green leaves of the plant. Protected between the cotyledons and terminating the axis of the plant is the first stem-bud (the plumule of the embryo), by the further growth and development of which the aerial portion of the plant, consisting of stem, leaves and branches, is formed, while the development of the radicle forms the root-system. The size and manner of growth of the adult plant show a great variety, from the small herb lasting for one season only, to the forest tree living for centuries. The arrangement of the conducting tissue in the stem is characteristic; a transverse section of the very young stem shows a number of distinct conducting strands—vascular bundles—arranged in a ring round the pith; these soon become united to form a closed ring of bast and wood, separated by a layer of formative tissue (cambium). In perennials the stem shows a regular increase in thickness each year by the addition of a new ring of wood outside the old one—for details of structure see Plants: Anatomy. A similar growth occurs in the root. This increase in the diameter of stem and root is correlated with the increase in leaf-area each season, due to the continued production of new leaf-bearing branches. A characteristic of the class is afforded by the complicated network formed by the leaf-veins,—well seen in a skeleton leaf, from which the soft parts have been removed by maceration. The parts of the flower are most frequently arranged in fives, or multiples of fives; for instance, a common arrangement is as follows,—five sepals, succeeded by five petals, ten stamens in two sets of five, and five or fewer carpels; an arrangement in fours is less frequent, while the arrangement in threes, so common in monocotyledons, is rare in dicotyledons. In some orders the parts are numerous, chiefly in the case of the stamens and the carpels, as in the buttercup and other members of the order Ranunculaceae. There is a very wide range in the general structure and arrangement of the parts of the flower, associated with the means for ensuring the transference of pollen; in the simplest cases the flower consists only of a few stamens or carpels, with no enveloping sepals or petals, as in the willow, while in the more elaborate type each series is represented, the whole forming a complicated structure closely correlated with the size, form and habits of the pollinating agent (see Flower). The characters of the fruit and seed and the means for ensuring the dispersal of the seeds are also very varied (see Fruit).