Kids.Net.Au Encyclopedia: How to distinguish a monocot from a dicot

/Home/Homework Help - Flowering Plants (Angiosperms)/Monocots and Dicots

How to distinguish a monocot from a dicot
Kids.Net.Au Encyclopedia

How to distinguish a monocot from a dicot
Monocots and dicots are the two groups of flowering plants. The distinction is often quite so fuzzy, so remember that no single characteristic will distinguish the classes.

In general, monocots are simpler in structure than dicots. Monocots evolved from dicots.

The simplest difference, and one that seems almost trivial, is the number of cotyledons[?] that these flowers have; monocots, as their name suggests, have one seed leaf. Dicots have two.

In monocot stems[?], the vascular tissue, the phloem and xylem are in bundles scattered throughout the stem, and they usually lack a vascular cambium. In dicots, the phloem and xylem are in rings around each other. They nearly always have cambium. Do not fall into the trap of thinking that a pine is a dicot because of its stem structure. It is a conifer, which is not a flowering plant. Obviously, it couldn't be monocot or a dicot.

Please visit the web site to learn more.