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Seed - a plant’s time capsule

© Narayan Dattatray Wadadekar

Most plants a common man knows are flowering plants. Most flowers they know are beautiful to look at or else people may not notice or remember them. Many flowers are lovely to smell. The flowers therefore, are and have been used, for decorative, beautifying, adorning and devotional purposes all over the world and in different cultures for last several millennia. We say things with roses (or other beautiful flowers).

But please remember, ultimately flowers are nothing but sex organs of plants. (Yuk?) Flowers may have only one kind of sex organs and may give only pollen or may carry only ovules. They may pollinate themselves or use the agency of wind, water, insects, birds, snails, bats etc. Once the pollination i.e. the transfer of pollen grains has been carried out the plants develop fruits and seeds.

Seeds have a hard protective seed coat, and an embryo axis (which contains a miniature edition of primary root, stem and leaves). A seed also contains stored food to last it for a period of rest i.e. dormancy. The stored food in the seeds is in the cotyledons the two fleshy parts in a seed like pea. It mainly contains starch and the flour of pea, bean, mung, and gram is of commercial value.

A grain of a cereal like wheat is a fruit as well as seed. It has its store of food in its endosperm. The cotyledon is only one and very thin. Coconuts like plants have liquid endosperm - the coconut water which we humans too find very nourishing. Food stored in seeds whether in endosperm or cotyledons serves as a source of energy till the germinating seed grows into a tiny plant and develops its own first green leaves. Even if one green leaf develops the plant has achieved the status of an independent individual capable of making its own food. Thus the seed is a plant's way to become another plant may be after some delay. A seed can be so small as to weigh a few micrograms, as in the case of orchids or as big as to weigh six kilograms as in "double coconut", the Lodoicea maldivica.

The delay could be of only a few days or of a few months and in some plants it could be of several centuries.

The lotus seeds are of special interest to paleobiologists, as they can remain dormant for many centuries. It is known to paleobiologists that some lotus seeds have been miraculously brought back to life after more than 1,000 years. Somehow, these seeds have managed to fend off, all age-related damage.