by Mary Free and Christa Watters, Extension Master Gardeners
If you read about plants, then you have seen the words monocot and dicot. You can surmise that the combining forms “mono” means single and “di” means two, both of Greek origin. But what of “cot”?
It is a shortened version of cotyledon. In angiosperms (flowering plants), it is the first leaf characteristic of monocotyledons or one of the first pair of leaves of the dicotyledons that emerge from a seed. The shapes of these embryonic leaves usually differ from those of the plant species. Other related words are acotyledon, with “a” meaning without; eudicotyledon, with “eu” meaning true; and hypocotyl, with “hypo” meaning beneath.
To learn more about these words and how you can differentiate between moncots and dicots without seeing the cotyledons, click on the image below.
Photo © B. Domangue CC BY-SA 4.0