Question

A dicot plant lacking cotyledons is
A. Cuscuta
B. Santalum
C. Lodoicea
D. None of the above

Answer 1

Hint: Cotyledons are an important part of the plants that help in classification of plants. It is called the embryonic leaf in seed bearing plants. The word cotyledon is derived from a Greek word that means seed leaf.

Complete answer:
The angiosperms or the flowering plants are the most ubiquitous and dominant vascular plant that contains enclosed seeds. They are highly evolved and advanced groups of plants. Angiosperms are mainly divided into monocots and dicots. They have been mainly distinguished on the basis of the number of cotyledon in their seeds. Cotyledons are the food storing leaf-like structures in the seed. Monocots generally possess one cotyledon in the embryo while dicots have two. Some of the examples of monocots are cereals, bamboo, sugarcane, palms, bananas and orchids.
The examples of dicots are hardwood trees, pulses, many fruits and vegetables, beverage crops and large numbers of ornamental flowering plants.
Apart from this other differences between monocots and dicots include the presence of tap root or adventitious root system in dicots but only adventitious roots in monocots.
The dicots are more abundant than monocots. More than 200,000 species of dicots have been described and 50000 species of monocots have been described.
Cuscuta is a parasitic flowering plant that is found in the tropical and temperate regions. This plant lacks cotyledons and is a parasitic plant.
So, the correct answer is “Option A”.

Note:
Angiosperms or flowering plants constitute the largest and the economically most important class in the plant kingdom. They include trees, shrubs, vines and herbs adapted to almost every kind of environment. They are primarily land plants.