what is monocot and give examples
Answers
Monocotyledon, or monocot for short, refers to one of two groups of flowering plants, or “angiosperms.” Most flowering plants are traditionally divided into two different categories: monocots and dicots. Members of each group tend to share similar features.
Monocots, as the name implies, are defined by having seeds that contain a single (mono-) embryonic leaf known as a cotyledon. This is a monophyletic group that constitutes a majority of our agricultural biomass and include many important crop staples including, but not limited to, rice, wheat, corn, sugar cane, bamboo, onion, and garlic.
A word of caution: when classifying flowers into monocots or dicots, remember that there are always exceptions to the rule. Some monocots may have a feature typically found in dicots, or vice versa. Even a few flowering plants (approximately 2%) don’t fit into either the monocot or the dicot category.
Examples of Monocots
Grasses
Although we generally don’t think of grass as a flowering plant, they actually do have small flowers that grow at the very tips! The grass family is arguably the most economically important group of monocots. Think of corn, wheat, and rice—they’re all a type of grass whose flowers are often overlooked because they do not have petals or sepals.
Palm Trees
The palm tree is an exception to the rule when it comes to monocot plants. Most monocots cannot grow as large and tall as palm trees do because they lack secondary growth—the growth of wood and bark—limiting most monocots to be herbaceous. However, palm trees have circumvented this issue by utilizing their vascular bundles and the lignin within them to create a more firm stem. Palm stems are also thickened by parenchymal cells that surround the vascular bundles, providing even more support for a tall tree-form.
Still, one clearly observable characteristic of a palm tree that identifies it as a monocot is the leaf of the tree. The leaves of a palm tree are long and strap-like, with major veins running parallel to one another.
Lillies
Probably one of the easiest of all plants to identify as monocots is the lily because it fits the bill for all monocot characteristics. The flowers of most lilies are obvious and trimerous as all three pedals are usually identical in size and shape, the roots are adventitious, it is small and herbaceous, and begins with a single cotyledon.