Nine Stages of a Seed

Latency

• The first stage of a seed starts with pollination of a plant. Successful pollination results in plant fertilization and initiates seed formation. Secondly, a seed forms a plant embryo, the embryo's food source, and a seed coat to protect the embryo. The third stage is dormancy. Plant embryos remain dormant within seeds, sometimes for many years. The endosperm develops inside a seed, and the seed coat hardens to offer protection against weather and mechanical damage. When conditions are favorable, the embryo resumes growing. Some seeds retain their viability for many years while others are short lived.

Cellular Mechanics

• The fourth stage, feeding the latent embryo, sustains an embryo during its dormant period. Primarily supplying starch for embryo nourishment, endosperm is also a vital part of nutrition in the human diet. Ground wheat endosperm makes flour and corn endosperm is what pops and makes popcorn. As endosperm feeds the seed embryo, it depletes the seed's storehouse of nutrition, and the seed moves closer to the end of its viability or ability to germinate. As important for the embryo's vitality is the fifth step: the absorption of water and gas. When environmental conditions are favorable, a seed's coat absorbs water and oxygen. This initiates cell respiration, the sixth stage. By utilizing sugars converted from endosperm starch, plus absorbed water and oxygen, respiration generates energy that seeds need to germinate, or sprout.

Emergence

• A seed's germ layer holds the embryo. In the seventh stage, germination occurs when an embryo grows large enough to push through the germ layer. During the eighth stage, a seed's first sprout emerges as a root. Roots precede shoots to anchor seed in the ground, which supports top growth. Roots also facilitate absorption of nutrients for plant vitality. The ninth stage, shoot emergence, is the visible, above-ground fulfillment of a seed's function -- forming a new plant.

Seed to Seed

• These seed stages are followed by multiple other stages of plant development. The phrase "from seed to seed" describes the complete life cycle from a seed to a plant that produces seeds of its own. Hybrid varieties of plants bear seeds that may not germinate true to the type of the parent plant, or may not germinate at all. In these cases, the stages of a seed do not end successfully and premature plant death occurs.