page_title: Seed
section_title: Seed records
hierarchical_section_title: Seed / Seed records
context_page_description: A seed is an embryonic plant enclosed in a protective outer covering. The formation of the seed is part of the process of reproduction in seed plants, the spermatophytes, including the gymnosperm and angiosperm plants.
  Seeds are the product of the ripened ovule, after fertilization by pollen and some growth within the mother plant. The embryo is developed from the zygote and the seed coat from the integuments of the ovule.
  Seeds have been an important development in the reproduction and success of gymnosperm and angiosperm plants, relative to more primitive plants such as ferns, mosses and liverworts, which do not have seeds and use water-dependent means to propagate themselves. Seed plants now dominate biological niches on land, from forests to grasslands both in hot and cold climates.
  The term "seed" also has a general meaning that antedates the above – anything that can be sown, e.g. "seed" potatoes, "seeds" of corn or sunflower "seeds". In the case of sunflower and corn "seeds", what is sown is the seed enclosed in a shell or husk, whereas the potato is a tuber.
  Many structures commonly referred to as "seeds" are actually dry fruits.
context_section_description: The oldest viable carbon-14-dated seed that has grown into a plant was a Judean date palm seed about 2,000 years old, recovered from excavations at Herod the Great's palace on Masada in Israel. It was germinated in 2005. (A reported regeneration of Silene stenophylla (narrow-leafed campion) from material preserved for 31,800 years in the Siberian permafrost was achieved using fruit tissue, not seed.)
  The largest seed is produced by the coco de mer, or "double coconut palm", Lodoicea maldivica.  The entire fruit may weigh up to 23 kilograms (50 pounds) and usually contains a single seed.
  The smallest seeds are produced by epiphytic orchids. They are only 85 micrometers long, and weigh 0.81 micrograms. They have no endosperm and contain underdeveloped embryos.
  The earliest fossil seeds are around 365 million years old from the Late Devonian of West Virginia.  The seeds are preserved immature ovules of the plant Elkinsia polymorpha.
caption: The massive fruit of the coco de mer
exif: {}