Seeds: Mystifying Mini Marvels

By Tawna Wilkinson                                                                                                
                                                                                                                       

                                                                                                                                                        

Did you know that seeds, those tiny, motionless, boring-looking things are in reality mystifying, mini marvels packed with life? Laboratory scientists have studied, dissected and microscopically peered into the seed coat of different kinds of seeds all over the globe and continue to be baffled by the activity they find; like the breathing, eating and drinking seeds do. 

That’s right, scientists have found that seeds - no matter what size, shape, or texture - breathe by absorbing oxygen from the atmosphere. They drink by soaking up moisture in the air and eat by using the moisture to turn stored up chemicals they have in their cells to food. And while they are waiting to sprout, they know exactly how much of it to do.

What’s more, each of these crunchy wonders, though it hasn’t sprouted, is an entire plant. It’s just in its embryonic or beginning form. Scrunched up inside the hull of a seed is a very small plant with all its teeny tiny plant parts. The leaves of the seed are called cotyledons. These are the first two leaves you see when the plant sprouts. The cotyledons are wrapped around and attached to a small stem, a tiny leaf bud, and a root tip.

Throughout the fall season and freezing winter, the tiny plant stays in its protective seed coat with its cotyledons wrapped around itself like a cozy blanket. It breathes, drinks, and eats while patiently waiting for spring.  When spring does arrive, the rain and sun, water and warm the ground. 

Then, when conditions are just right, the root tip breaks through the seed’s hull and grows downward, while the cotyledons stretch for the sun. The lifeless-looking wonder sprouts into a seedling. The summer season matures the seedling into an adult plant. It blossoms and bears fruit with hundreds, sometimes thousands, more seeds full of the same packed life it had.

So the next time you see a seed, one of those tiny, motionless, boring-looking things, remember, though your eyes cannot see it, there is surprising activity going on inside that mystifying, mini marvel that still has scientists scratching their heads.