The Magic of a Seed

Do you realize the magic that is in a seed? They can lie dormant for thousands of years and then with just the right conditions the baby plant that is hanging out inside that seed will magically wake up! How amazing is that? The fact that seeds are viable for that long is unimaginable!

Germination

A seed needs three things in order to sprout. Do you want to guess what they are? When I ask my in-person Botany students this question, usually soil and light are always at the top of the list of responses. However, neither of those are needed for germination to take place. In order for a seed to sprout you need three things:

1. Water
2. Warmth
3. Air

That’s it! Such a simple combination. Seeds will germinate in the dark if they are warm and have some air flow. They will germinate in any moist place. One time, I had tomato seeds sprout in my kitchen sink drain from a tray of seeds that fell off a shelf. Seeds want to grow and will sprout in less than ideal conditions as long as those three criteria are met..

Two Types of Seeds, Two Types of Plants: Monocots and Dicots

There are two types of flowering plants that each make a different type of seed.

Parts of a Seed:

1. Radicle = Root
2. Hypocotyl = Stem
3. Cotyledon = Fleshy part of the seed that provide the seed with a food source until it can photosynthesize on its own
4. Testa = Seed Coat
5. Plumule = First Seed Leaves
6. Hilum = Seed’s Bellybutton

Seed Classifications:

There are two different seed types amongst flowering plants. 

1. Monocots – Monocots have a single cotyledon (mono = one). After sprouting they are identified by the parallel veins in the leaves 

Examples of Monocots Include: Lily, Iris, Grass, Orchid, etc.

2. Dicots – Dicots have two cotyledons (Di = two). After sprouting they are identified by the branching veins in the leaves. 

Examples of Dicots Include: Mint, Rose, Aster, Parsley, Pea, Mustard, Violet, Phlox, Buttercup, Mallow, Pink, Hydrangea, Geranium, and nearly every tree.

Dissect a Seed:
A Great Activity for Your Kids

Supplies Needed: small bowl, water, dried Pinto or Great Northern beans, toothpick.

1. Cover a hand-full bean seeds in a small bowl with water and soak overnight.
2. Carefully pry open the seed with a toothpick at the Hilum (see above – seed’s bellybutton, center indentation on the side of the seed).
3. Look to see if this bean seed is a monocot (one cotyledon) or a dicot (two cotyledons).
4. Look for the baby plant inside. You should be able to see the leaves (Plumule) and stem (Hypocotyl).

Different Seed Types

Seeds come in an amazing array of sizes, shapes, colors, and patterns. You can find sees as big as a soccer ball to as small as a piece of dust. Think about the fact that both seeds that big and that small contain a baby plant. Amazing!

Some seeds are striped.

Some seeds look like balls.

Some seeds have wings.

Some seeds have tough hard coats. 

Some seeds are wrapped in paper discs.

Some seeds have tufts of fuzz.

Some seeds have hairs.

What do you get from a single seed? …Abundance!

Have you ever thought about the yield you can get from one cherry tomato seed?

Think about it.

One cherry tomato seed will produce one plant, and let’s say that that plant produces 100 cherry tomatoes in one summer. If each cherry tomato has nearly 100 seeds in it – that’s a lot of future tomatoes! Just in one season one seed has the potential to produce as many as 10,000 new seeds.

1 seed x 100 tomatoes x 100 seeds in each = 10,000 new seeds

That is an amazing yield. What a great provision that the plants that we need for food produce so many seeds!

The Flower’s Secret Harvest

So, by now, you can probably guess what the flower’s secret harvest is. That’s right!

SEEDS! 

So, the next time you see a dead flower, don’t think ugly and snip it off! Think SEEDS! Seeds are a wonderful harvest at the end of the season from the flowers in your garden. Don’t overlook them. Seeds can benefit you in three ways:

1. More plants for your garden.
2. More plants for friends.
3. More food for wildlife.

So, think twice before cleaning up your flower beds or vegetable garden at the end of the season. There might be a hidden harvest there that would help save you money so that you don’t have to buy seeds next year, you could share your seeds with a friend, or you could leave that dried up flower head where it is and it will become food for the birds in the winter. Plus the birds will help reseed the garden for you as they eat all those little seeds out of the dried up flower heads.

Seeds: A great hook to interest kids in Botany!

Try it! Find a dead flower with seeds inside. Ask any little kid to come and hold out their hand. The minute you pour all those seeds from the flower head into their hand, the next thing that they are going to want to do is to pinch off all the dead flowers to find all the seeds. It’s a great way to get kids interested in Botany. All the more so if you give them a patch of dirt to plant those seeds in. The joy they will have the following spring when the seeds sprout will abound!

Want to know the best books and games to use with your kids to teach them Botany?

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