Monocotyledon

Monocotyledons Temporal range: Early Cretaceous – Recent PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N
Diversity of monocots which includes wheat (Triticum), taro (Colocasia esculenta), date palm, (Phoenix dactylifera), Zostera marina, lily (Lilium), Pandanus heterocarpus, and ginger (Zingiber officinale)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Plantae
Clade:	Tracheophytes
Clade:	Angiosperms
Clade:	Monocots
Type genus
Lilium L.[1]
Orders
alismatid monocots Acorales Alismatales lilioid monocots Asparagales Dioscoreales Liliales Pandanales Petrosaviales commelinid monocots Arecales Commelinales Poales Zingiberales
Synonyms
Alternifoliae Bessey[2] Endogenae DC.[3] Lilianae Takht.[4][5] Liliatae Cronquist, Takht. & W.Zimm.[a][1] Liliidae Takht.[b][5][8] Liliopsida Batsch[9] Monocotyleae Eichler[10] Monocotyledonae E.Morren ex Mez[11][c] Monocotyledones

Monocotyledons (/ˌmɒnəˌkɒtəˈliːdənz/),^[d][13][14] commonly referred to as monocots, (Lilianae sensu Chase & Reveal) are grass and grass-like flowering plants (angiosperms), the seeds of which typically contain only one embryonic leaf, or cotyledon. They constitute one of the major groups into which the flowering plants have traditionally been divided; the rest of the flowering plants have two cotyledons and are classified as dicotyledons, or dicots.

Monocotyledons have almost always been recognized as a group, but with various taxonomic ranks and under several different names. The APG III system of 2009 recognises a clade called "monocots" but does not assign it to a taxonomic rank.

The monocotyledons include about 70,000 species, about a quarter of all angiosperms. The largest family in this group (and in the flowering plants as a whole) by number of species are the orchids (family Orchidaceae), with more than 20,000 species. About 12,000 species belong to the true grasses (Poaceae), which are economically the most important family of monocotyledons. Often mistaken for grasses, sedges are also monocots.

In agriculture the majority of the biomass produced comes from monocotyledons. These include not only major grains (rice, wheat, maize, etc.), but also forage grasses, sugar cane, the bamboos, and many other common food and decorative crops.

Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).